DOG HOUSE is out today!
Wrote and produced this short film last year which
@MirandaHolms
directed, starring the amazing
@LongBrophy
@natluurtsema
@tombellforever
Frank has finally found somewhere to live but there's just one problem - he has to behave.
Everyone thinks the whole nepo baby thing is about their parents literally lining them up with a job, but it's about knowing you can take risks and really go for it because your family can help you out financially if it all goes wrong. It's about even feeling like you can try.
Love Actually is set in 2003, but the Joni Mitchell Alan Rickman buys for Emma Thompson was released in 2000. He should have bought her 2002 album "Travelogue," as she was less likely to have heard it already. Another little-discussed facet of his villainy.
If this tweet gets 100 likes, I will reveal what is behind this door that was supposed to be kept locked shut in the toilets of the building where I am working today.
I genuinely gasped.
I have finally recovered emotionally enough to tell the story of a Zoom corporate gig I did earlier this year which ended with the client interrupting what I was doing, asking me to do something else, and me responding by playing "Happy Birthday" on the clarinet and hanging up.
Watched Loki and kept remembering the time my friend was picking sloes on Hampstead Heath and Tom Hiddleston walked past on his phone, then came back 5 minutes later and said "Blueberries?" and she said "Sloes" and he slapped his forehead and said "Sloes!" and walked off.
Tearing out my hair over this guy.
YOU ARE THE OPPOSITION, HAVING A MANIFESTO WHICH IS OPEN TO TORY CRITICISM IS YOUR JOB.
A MANIFESTO WHICH DOESN'T LEAVE ITSELF OPEN TO TORY CRITICISM WOULD BE A CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO.
Sincerely,
A constituent.
I'm sure lots of people with famous parents have never been specifically given opportunities or industry contacts by their family, but that doesn't mean they haven't benefited from the privilege of knowing they can do it and fail. It just needn't be quibbled over.
Last night a woman tried to walk out of the show but left through the wrong door that led into a fire escape that she couldn't leave without setting the alarm off, and rather than come back into the show she just stayed in the fire escape for the entire hour. Commitment.
Personally I never really feel like it's Christmas until the industry I work in starts to fall apart, and 75% of the things I planned to do in the subsequent year crumble away, and another year of my life is eroded by an emerging plague, and I see the Coca-Cola ad.
And the reason lots of so-called nepo babies get so defensive about it is because from their POV, they looked at what their parents did, saw that it was possible, then did it, knowing that there was money enabling them to try.
That doesn't FEEL like you've been helped.
It feels like you've done it off your own back, and the ways in which you've benefited from what your parents did are invisible.
And that's fine! I've not got that much of an issue with nepo-babies, lots of them have worked incredibly hard. I just don't want them to deny it.
Apparently my audition to play James Bond has leaked to the Hollywood trade papers and is being ridiculed, so I'm putting it online myself to get ahead of the inevitable backlash.
FYI, no I did not get the part and yes I have been told that my interpretation was not correct.
I auditioned for Ricky Gervais once. At the end of the audition he burst out laughing and that made me feel good but then he wouldn't stop laughing and kept looking at everyone encouraging them to laugh too and it became clear he was laughing at his own performance and script.
OK then, here goes. On the other side of the door that should have been kept locked was A SECOND DOOR.
This one was also unlocked.
If the original tweet gets 1000 likes, I will reveal what was behind this one. I find the next picture frightening.
"Hey mum, I got a part in the BBC drama Years & Years!"
"Oh wow, what's the part?"
"I play a sort of chaperone who escorts another character into a room!"
"Oh great! Lots of lines?"
"No lines, sadly."
"But we'll see your face in it?"
"Oh, you'll see my face."
To my left was a third door, apparently leading to a Deep Void.
If the original tweet gets 5000 likes, I will reveal what happened when I entered the Deep Void.
In the following scene where Emma Thompson cries in her bedroom, she is not only thinking about Alan Rickman's infidelity, she is also thinking "But I've already got this album, it came out 3 years ago!" which is why the scene is so heartbreaking.
THREAD
I'm gonna talk about this a bit because it's SUCH a shame and, while it's very easy for everyone to agree on that, there are people who are newer to comedy who might not understand quite what has been lost, so I'm gonna rake over the death of risk at the Fringe.
Big respect to Yoda for spending 20 years living in a swamp waiting for Luke Skywalker to visit him one day, and when he eventually did, deciding to pretend to be a goofy lil idiot for the first few minutes of their hanging out. Real commitment to the bit.
If you wanted to work out which actors are in both the new Spider-Man movie and the new Dune movie you would need to draw a Zendayagram.
UH OH BRILLIANT JOKE ALERT
British comedy is in a really amazing state right now. There is an absolute wealth of amazing comics making incredible work.
Not much of it is making it to TV, sadly, which leaves people thinking British comedy is now shit.
Take more risks! Make more good stuff!
@sianharries_
Absolutely! The reason I empathise with them a bit is because my parents were in the arts, and are not rich or famous, but I'm under no illusions about what a huge, huge advantage it was to have parents who encouraged me to do creative things and didn't talk down the possibility.
Ok, whenever I am texting on WhatsApp, there seems to be a single button that I keep pressing by accident that automatically sends a sticker of a sloth doing something wacky. It happens to me daily, and nobody has ever done it to me. Is it just me? Does anyone else have this?
In between bouts of sobbing I said "I spent ten years getting good at a particular way of doing things and a particular way of making stuff, but I can't do it any more. It's all gone and now I'm just a stupid man being stupid, and it's not funny any more."
I am OBSESSED with this moment in Death in Paradise where this guy says "confesh" instead of "confession" then visibly thinks "Woops, fucked that, never mind, they won't use this take."
Also couldn't stop wondering why the Time Variance Authority showed Loki scenes from his life that cross-cut between different camera angles, POV shots and even a rotating camera group-shot. How did they get that footage?
In 2013 a guy I used to perform comedy with strangled me live onstage until I passed out. When I came round he said "If I hadn't stopped strangling you when I did, you'd have died. I saved your life!"
Think he's quit comedy now.
Anyway, this argument reminds me of him.
If Britannia had not ruled the waves there would never have been a Royal Navy strong enough to abolish the slave trade, intercepting 1,600 ships and freeing 150,000 Africans while sustaining major casualties. Guess it’s too late to delete your tweet ...
OK the tweet got 1000 likes.
Beyond the 2nd door was a frightening abandoned bunker. When I looked to my right, I saw this view. I decided to enter the bunker.
I don't want to drag this out for TOO long, so I will post what I saw when I looked to my LEFT shortly...
I just had maybe the best news I've ever had in my career and somewhere out there in the universe a 12-year-old me, who had a very specific dream in his head, sat up and took notice and felt hopeful.
Sometimes things take 20 years. Keep doing the things you care about, everyone.
Staring down the barrel of perhaps a 6-month period where audiences are understandably unwilling to book tickets to live shows, but there is little to no legal framework for performers to cancel them, and no financial support of any kind. This is getting very tiring.
Sorry for being cryptic about this yesterday! I thought we weren't supposed to announce too many details but it seems like it's fine, so hey ho. I'm making a sitcom for BBC Radio 4 called Dream Factory and it'll be out next summer and I'm very proud and excited.
I just had maybe the best news I've ever had in my career and somewhere out there in the universe a 12-year-old me, who had a very specific dream in his head, sat up and took notice and felt hopeful.
Sometimes things take 20 years. Keep doing the things you care about, everyone.
Film about Wile E. Coyote in advanced middle age, now a successful businessman, hasn't thought about Roadrunner in decades.
Hears 2nd hand that Roadrunner has died, leaving a child at the mercy of the care system.
Grief-stricken, Coyote adopts the kid to atone for his sins.
I play along on the clarinet, which I was keeping out of shot for emergencies, and then wave goodbye and hang up.
My housemate has been listening from outside the door to the entire thing, and has found it very funny. As I leave my room she starts clapping and I burst into tears.
Did a 6-day hike and it made me wonder why there aren't more scenes in the Lord of the Rings where everyone's just trying to think of what to talk about.
Eventually I would find Phil Booth's hair (a wig) under my desk, and become upset and start crying because I didn't understand how it had got there. Then I would stick my head into my hamper and come out transformed into a wacky baby in a basket, like so.
I have won the Comedians' Choice Award for Best Show, and I'll be honest, that's pretty much the loveliest way to round off what has been by some distance my best ever Fringe. Thank you to everyone who voted for me, and huge congrats to Laura as well.
Wise Old Saying - The best time to plant an oak tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.
Me - What about 19 years ago?
Wise Old Saying - Yes that is also a good time to plant an oak tree.
Me - What about 18 years ago?
Wise Old Saying - Hahaha yes, yes.
"But I don't understand why it would be funny for you to do something that would make me annoyed," said the client.
"Don't worry about it," I said, and joined the correct Zoom link. This is the first point at which the client can see that I am dressed as a hot dog.
I was booked to do half an hour of comedy over Zoom for the furloughed employees of a financial tech company. I was given some instructions - "Make fun of Harry for his haircut, and for Phil Booth [names changed] for his lack of one!" I took this to mean that Phil Booth was bald.
My housemate came up with a brilliant idea, that I pretend to be a children's entertainer booked in error, thereby setting up a silly, ridiculous tone from the start so that everything that followed would look deliberate rather than like I was just getting things wrong.
I think that if your best friend transforms into a rock monster and becomes quite depressed and starts calling himself The Thing, you should rethink your plans to call yourself Mr Fantastic because it's not a thing a nice friend would do, but maybe that's just me.
Despite it no longer making sense, I ask everyone to search their homes for Phil Booth's hair. Nobody does. I hold up a wig and start crying.
"Do your Star Wars routine," says the client. I ignore him, and decide to press onto my wacky baby bit.
PS Beneath all the "sold out" pics, review posts etc, a reminder - in 2019 I sent myself an email on day 4 of the Fringe saying "Do not come back here. Never forget how sad this place makes you" because my show was going so badly. Everything turned round on Day 6.
So I set about writing a bespoke half-hour routine in which I played a character called Mr Boingo, who was dressed as a hot dog. There was going to be a great bit where I asked where Phil Booth's hair was, and made everyone search their homes for Phil Booth's hair.
I learned to drive for a full year but never took the test, partly because my learning to drive at one point involved me and my driving instructor stealing 20 crates of protein shakes from an industrial estate.
Here is a catalogue of my attempts to learn.
My approach to comedy usually revolves around getting things wrong, being stupid, messing up, making mistakes, being silly. I wasn't sure how to communicate this tone in the context of a Zoom corporate without it just looking like everything I had planned to do was going wrong.
Watched A Little Life.
Drafted & deleted many tweets about how much I disliked it.
Ultimately, I have nothing nice to say about it, because it has nothing nice to say about the world, or about pain, or trauma, or love.
It's art without hope, which I think makes it redundant.
Next legacy sequel should be Forrest Gump 2, in which an increasingly decrepit and intolerant Forrest blunders through the 90s, 00s and 10s, clumsily inserted into archive footage and accidentally causing 9/11, the global financial crisis and Brexit, all in the name of love.
I was also specifically asked to do my "Star Wars routine." This was a routine I wrote for geek comedy night
@DearHarrySpock
in January that requires in-depth knowledge of Star Wars Episode IX, but the client said "Quite a few of my staff will really love it!"
Any other introverts feeling like this is the most socialising they've done in months?
Phone call after phone call, and then a groupchat, and then a Facetime, and then a video hangout.
I'm exhausted. Quarantine is the most socially exhausting thing I've ever had to do.
To the guy last night who saw my show that ends with me in my pants because I wanted to confront some of my body confidence issues onstage, then came up to me at the end and said "Someone doesn't go to the gym! Keep dancing, you need the cardio!" - thanks, you made me feel crap.
I was also told that all the employees would have been sent a hamper containing Champagne and chocolate biscuits, and decided to incorporate this into my act so I had one as well, so I went out and bought a bottle of Champagne, a hamper and some chocolate biscuits.
7 years since I took this picture of a chicken crossing a road in Cambodia and to this day I still challenge anyone to show me a better picture of anything ever.
"Hello everyone, it's me, Mr Boingo! Where's the birthday boy?" I shouted. Confusion reigns. There is silence. "Oh no, I've been booked in error! I thought this was a birthday party!" I said. "Can you all say Hello, Mr Boingo?" About two people said "Hello, Mr Boingo."
@5tevieM
Have any of them done the thing yet where they tell you you're not allowed to see the flat unless you commit to making an offer on the flat before you've seen it? That's my favourite.
"I quite like classrooms," he says.
"Do you hang out in a lot of classrooms?" I ask, not really thinking about how that sounds.
"What do you mean by that?" he says, defensively. There's a pause while I think.
"Are you a teacher?" I ask.
"No, I work for this fintech company."
Starmer stalked into the lab to inspect the latest batch of Keirs.
"Phase 2 is complete," he whispered, pressing his hand against the glass of one of the vats. "Soon, my Keirs. Soon."
I'm Covid-free and back from my social media holiday, and oh boy, I can't tell you how many great ideas for tweets I came up with during it, and how peaceful it felt to just tweet them in my head, and then I realised that what I've done is I've rediscovered "thoughts."
"Nice haircut, Harry!" I say. This gets a laugh. "Now where's Phil Booth?"
"Here I am!" says a man with long hair.
"Oh, you've got long hair," I say.
"Yeah, I need a haircut," says Phil Booth.
"Ah, right, I see what's happened here," I say, then there's a pause as I have a think.
Rumpelstiltskin being told by his management that he needs to set up social media accounts and start building an online brand for himself while he frustratedly tries to explain that that fucks his entire business model.
These tweets are confusing because the Twitter handle & name suggest they're tweets BY James Bond, but he's mostly just plugging a film in which he is a character, & referring to himself in the third person. He should be tweeting stuff like "How did they get this footage of me?"
At the Edinburgh Fringe this year, I bet we'll see at least 1 routine where someone talks about Wordle, then lists the variants they got into, (Worldle, Sweardle, Absurdle etc) then lists increasingly outlandish made-up variants in an accelerating pace then everyone claps.
I quickly said "I'm going to pretend to be a children's entertainer called Mr Boingo booked in error - can you go along with it and pretend to be annoyed at the mix-up?"
"Why would I be annoyed with what you had prepared for us?" Said the client.
"It's going to be funny," I said.
I joined the Zoom link I'd been sent 20 minutes before the gig so I could run the premise past the client and ask for his co-operation with it. At one minute before the gig start time, the client called me to ask where I was. He had sent me the wrong Zoom link.
The middle of this gig is a blur. I think I fell back on some old stand-up routines, but I don't think they went very well. About twenty-five minutes in, I notice one guy has a cartoon picture of a school classroom as his Zoom background. "Why've you got that?" I ask.
I stick my head into the hamper and transform into a wacky baby. A couple of people on the call go "Urgh." I try to play peek-a-boo with one of them, so he goes and gets his eight-year-old daughter and brings her onto the call to play peek-a-boo with me. It goes on for a while.
"What hampers?" said one of them.
"I thought you had hampers with Champagne in them," I said. Silence.
"I'm drinking some vodka," said one of them. I held up my hamper and Champagne.
"Well I've got Champagne," I said. Silence. I decide to move on to my Phil Booth's hair routine.
Just found out my girlfriend didn't know that Austin Powers and Dr. Evil were played by the same actor, and she's amazed. I can't process it. Imagine watching that film and thinking that two different actors had come up with those performances independently.
Me 5 days ago - "Try to find a good balance between taking care of yourself and giving yourself space on the one hand, and on the other hand, finding little ways every day to be creative.
Me today:
The smash-hit anti-magic show "Blink" comes to
@sohotheatre
from the 12th-15th of September.
"Blink, but don't miss it!" -
@MetroUK
One of the
@EveningStandard
's Top 20 Must-See Comedy Shows of 2022.
"This routine doesn't really work unless you've seen Episode IX," I say.
"I thought it was just about Star Wars," says the client. It's coming up to half an hour now, so I find the two people who've been enjoying it the most and ask them to sing Happy Birthday in Dutch.
RIP Meat Loaf. In 2013 I listened to a Lou Reed album and the second the album finished, Lou Reed died. Last night I went to see the Meat Loaf musical. I am both sad to lose Meat Loaf and terrified by the extent of my powers.
Not that anyone needs to know what I think about the Plan B measures, but just to get it off my chest:
WHY IS SHOWING A NEGATIVE TEST RESULT TO ENTER A PUBLIC VENUE ONLY BEING MADE A REQUIREMENT NOW RATHER THAN HAVING BEEN ONE FOR, SAY, THE LAST 18 MONTHS?