Russ Powell

Done and dusted. The gigging for 2012 is completed.

Most acts will be doing their last gig of the year on new years eve, but for me I don't think theres enough money out there for me to be gigging on NYE (i'm sure there is, but it's nice for people to think you can't just be bought). What I mean though is that gigging at this time of the year is generally more like crowd control in a nursery for alchoholic toddlers than a comedy gig, pissed up groups do not ideal comedy cro...

I'm a man that likes to live on the edge. That's why i like fruit pastilles.

With any other confectionary or snack you know what you're going to get before you take the wrapper off. If it says solero on the packet you know you're going to get a slightly dissapointing ice cream. If it says lion bar on the packet you know you're going to get something that looks like a nobbly turd. With FP's you've no way of knowing. Obviously you know theres going to be small su...

This comedy malarkey can lead you into doing things you may not initially believe are funny business related but in the end turn out to be just as worthwhile, enjoyable and rewarding as anything traditionally associated with stand up. One such thing I’ve been doing of late is working with an advertising agency on the pitch for a new campaign for Carling, which may even see me as the face of the campaign (it’s all ifs, buts and maybes depending on whether the agency get the busines...

There's an interesting quote about the funny business that "Comedy is tragedy plus time". (Carol Burnett, as quoted in Starting from Scratch (1989) by Rita Mae Brown)

My thought on this is that the length of time it takes tragedy to become comedy depends entirely on the subjectivity of the tragedy at hand.

There is also the delineation required here between 'a tragedy' and something being 'tragic'. A tragedy is a pre-o...

I'd like to think i've learnt quite a few life lessons from being involved in and performing comedy so far. Not just about doing the actual comedy and providing the funnies for others, but actually about life itself. Here's an example:

The other week I performed my solo show, Powell to the People, as part of the Reading Comedy Festival. It was a sell out crowd and all that, but thats not the point (although it's always nice to drop in for a bit of ego massage). The point was...

Free association is quite a cool way of generating new ideas sometimes. When you're stuck it can unlock things in your brain that you didn't realise or anticipate may be there, and you make connections to certain things that can lead you down paths and alley ways. Lets try it now. I'm going to think of the first thing/person/whatever that comes into my head then do a bit of free association/stream of consciousness stuff. This will all be in real time, although you haven't anyway of actually k...

Howdy all,

Now, i've been banging on about writing a book for a little while now. I've had the story knocking around for ages but have only recently managed to sort out the plot points and characters properly and get the beats in all the right order. Having done that i've now started writing this mother and what you see below is the first draft of the first chapter.

At ...

So stuffs been happening.

I ferried myself to the Isle of Wight at the weekend and did some gigging in the comedy tent at Bestival. This restored my faith in comedy at festivals. If it's properly organised, advertised and set-up then it works like a dream. It was. The barometer used to measure performance at festival gigs is usually that of how many people walk out whilst you are on stage. They've not paid anything to be there (although really they have because it's all incl...

So it's a new blog post. Not quite back to the regularity with which i was posting before but i'm getting there. Or should i be? Is anyone reading these blogs, what purpose are they serving?

Well i know at least 2 people read these blogs whenever i post them (Hi Stef. Hi James) but maybe it's not about them being read, maybe it's about the process of writing. Another outlet through which words can pour from my fingers into keyboards and onto computer screens without the time...