One down...

So the first show is done... and you know what? I was pretty happy with it actually. Yes I'm feeling rather pleased, it couldn't have gone better for a first show. So obviously I'll now have a terrible show tomorrow.... so I best enjoy this while it lasts.

There are things that'll get a lot better I'm sure, as is the way, and some things I'll change and cut and work out how to do in a more magical way. But both Ben and I are chuffed. We had a quick drink in the courtyard after the show, and are now home ready to watch Batman Begins before then going to the cinema later this week to see The Dark Knight.

We've not seen any actual comedy yet but plan to change that tomorrow with a viewing of some funnies.

I was very worried before the show that there might actually not be anyone there, but some lovely people all turned up, and gave me a delightful crowd who I hope enjoyed themselves. The show itself I didn't massively enjoy or have fun with, but that'll come when I'm more comfortable with it.

For the first time in ages, I was so nervous before the show today, I really feel the pressure this year, as I keep saying, but today it kinda all dawned on me.. I was also told we had someone from The Observer in, so I'm really hoping that the review is at the very least a'ok. Feel rather sick when I think about it.

Yesterday was a nice evening, after our tech we went to meet Tim Minchin and family at the Spiegeltent for a quick drink, this turned into a rather long drink after the rain started pouring, proper pouring. He was there with his lovely wife Sarah and his beautiful baby Violet, who has a fond fascination with bracelets. It was nice to see them, and it is his show I'm most excited about this year, and plug at the end of all my shows.. his and Mark Watsons.

This morning I went shopping for fabric, ended up with a nice blue and orange one to match the poster which now adorn my set. I also had a little jump for joy when I saw my huge posters and name outside the venue, I'll share this with you by letting you see the images, in the hope you also jump for joy a little.


Did you jump for joy? No? Oh well.

Anyway, enough about me. How have you been?

Chris x

All Tech-ed Out

Hiya,

Just a quick one today as I'm a busy boy. I've just come back from a four hour tech run through. Most people seem to be about an hour... I'm longer.. much longer. It went well though thanks to a real nice tech crew and such.

The show's looking in really good shape, looks really nice in the room, flashing lights, big tee-vee ummmm... that's it. There's a lot of seats in there though, a lot of seats indeed. I very much hope I can sell it.

Am feeling very worried, lots of pressure, lots of people I don't want to let down, those sorts of things, so please do come see the show if you get a chance.

We have a guitar in our flat, to prove it here is Ben posing with it.


I have seen three of my posters in the Pleasance as well, they're really big and very fancy, and slightly egotistical.

Right that's it now, loads to do, I promise to blog properly soon.
Chris x

Choo Choo-ing along

It’s Monday. I’m on a train. Yes get me I’m blogging on a train thanks to the free on board wi-fi. I’ve worked out why it’s free. It’s because it’s the slowest thing EVER. Ah well, it is free.

So firstly I’ve realised that in my past blog there was no photo of my shoes due to me forgetting to take the picture. Many of you are hanging on to see those shoes. I’d upload them now but they are in my suitcase and I’m not opening that up. I promise to take the photo soon though.

So Ben and I are on our way up to Edinburgh, it was lovely and sunny when we left London. I expect it’ll be rainy in Edinburgh. Oh joy. I’ve brought an umbrella though. We’re lording it up in first class as I got the tickets for £52 return, as such we are guzzling as much free coffee as possible. Ben however is unhappy that they coffee is instant, he expected proper coffee what with it being First Class. He is a man slightly obsessed with coffee. He takes his own cafeteria into work to brew his own cup of joe. Weirdo.

The train is just getting into York, which means soon they’ll offer the lunch menu and I might have a pizza or some pasta on the train. I assume it’ll be not very tasty but ever so costly. We’ll see.

Last night we stayed at the Travelodge Kings Cross, it cost £29 for the room. I thought what could go wrong. Turns out it was the hottest room in the world, and they didn’t have any twin rooms so Ben and I had to share a bed. I order to avoid awkwardness I slept on top of the duvet him under it. I think secretly he was real happy to share a bed with ‘One of the most exciting entertainers in Britain’ – The Guardian. Also we were in Room 101. This amused us both, him more than me.

On this train journey we’ve been trying to work out what to see this year. Normally I’m very good at planning and booking tickets in advance and such, this year we’re going to play it by ear and just book on the day, apart from the odd few we know we really want to see, who are only on for a day or two.

I currently have a bit of a bad eye, which I’m hoping will clear up by the first show, otherwise I might have to wear a patch and as such do a pirate special. That could be fun though.

Yesterday I had to buy some lollypops for my show… 390 lollypops to be precise, that’s a lot of lollys and I got some curious looks from the person in the shop. They were called Super Dooper lollys, now I think they should have been spelt Super Duper, but no, the lolly people think differently, and who are we to judge them on their spelling of dooper or duper, or as my auto correct spell check just chose doper.

Right, to the restaurant bit of the train for me. Bye bye.

Nearly there

Alright there? How you keeping?

I’m on a train. Choo Choo and such. I thought it’d be highly original and unique to write my blog on a train, although I suspect I’ll be doing the same on Monday when I get the train up to Edinburgh. Wowza.

The train I’m currently on has just left Cardiff and I am winging my way back to London. It’s a nice lovely sunny Saturday, not that I’ve seen much of it. I’ve been very busy you see.

Final preparations for Edinburgh are now done and dusted, I’m just waiting to get up there. I had my last preview on Monday which went rather well, in that it’s down to time and it all seemed to work. I then worked my skinny ass (or arse, you pick) off till Thursday when I went to see the fabulous Wall-E, which I think might possibly be one of the most perfect films every created. I not only did this but thanks to Chloe my shopping chum, I brought the most showbiz shoes I’ve ever seen to wear on stage. I can confirm that so far both Tim Minchin and Colin Murray are quasi impressed with the shoes and both my Mum and Sister like them. I wonder what the people of Edinburgh will think? In fact what do you think of them. Here they are in their natural home, the shoe box. Leave me a comment to send your thoughts to me.

Before my excitement of Wall-E and shoe shopping I had to take my suitcase into work on Wednesday as I’m not going home before Edinburgh. I forgot how many clothes I wanted to take for a month, and had great fun with a large suitcase, weak skinny arms and rush hour all to battle with on Wednesday morning. Luckily all my props had already been taken to my promoter to go up to Edinburgh. Matt my promoter has now returned from the USA with a bit of a tan and LOTS of free Entourage stuff from HBO. I also love Entourage and he’s yet to show me anything I can have… bit rude. Amy at my promoters helped me carry my props up in the lift with Ben, that was nice of her. I’ve yet to see Matt carry anything, I’m beginning to suspect that he could be weaker than my goodself.

Anyway back to this week, I was in Bristol on Friday seeing my Mum and Sister, I took them to see Mamma Mia, we all enjoyed it. It was a little embarrassing however. Some people were clapping along. I did not like this at all, and wanted to shoot them dirty looks, yet had a feeling they were on a ‘special trip out’ so I resisted. It was nice to see my family, my Mum and Step Dad are coming up to Edinburgh soon, so I’ll write about them at a later date. My little sister sadly can’t come, but am sure she’ll be thinking of me as I will be of her. I’m missing her actual 21st Birthday as I’ll be in Edinburgh… any thoughts on what I should get her?

I also popped into see my friends Pat and Claire who run the amazing Truffle Shuffle website. They sell really cool t-shirts which I wear a lot of, so they stocked me up with some for Edinburgh. If you see me, chances are I’ll be in one of their t-shirts. Look this is what their warehouse looks like.



Pat also owns an A TEAM VAN!, this is it. I went in it. I felt a bit like Mr T but without the fear of flying… oh and also without the body mass, and afro, oh and bling, oh also I’m not black. Other than that, almost the exact same.

So after Bristol I went to Cardiff, which is why I’m currently writing this on the train back from Cardiff. I’ve been here teaching Merlin to do magic, which has been rather cool. There’s this new BBC 1 show called Merlin starting later this year, and the guy who played Merlin, a nice chap by the name of Colin who is a rather good actor indeed, well he was filming some magic tricks for their website that I designed and wrote and stuff, so I had to show him how to do them. He was bloody good.

I also had to double for him for a few tricks, so got to dress up as Merlin. Look here is me in the costume.
Don’t I look like a cool dude?! Probably best you don’t answer that really.

So that’s it for now, I want to watch some Dexter and have a nap before I get to London. I’ll upload this when I get home. If anything exciting happens between now and then I might write about it. I doubt anything will though.

Chris x

Starting to pack

So with 1 week and 2 days to go before I get on the train to Edinburgh I've already started packing. This my friends is known as organisation with a hint of OCD. I'm currently up to my neck in lists of things to do, things to remember to do, things to pack, things to post and just... well.... things.

It's amazing how quickly Edinburgh has come round again, it only seems like yesterday that I was there last time. I have also now started to have Edinburgh related dreams, which are always very stressful, the other night I woke up from one shouting... actually shouting because the lights went down in my show. I'm not really a shouter so that was interesting.

As I said in my first paragraph I have started packing and trying to sort out some technical things. The lovely folk at LG have given me a TV to use in Edinburgh and on my tour after it, but at the moment I can't seem to hook it up to the DVD player I'm using and the sound mixer, so I'm hoping it'll be all fixed by the time I get to Edinburgh, I doubt it though because I've had to pack it up into a flight case to be sent in a van up to Edinburgh on Monday. I'm worried about it getting smashed and stuff so I've also packed the flight case with clothes to pad it out and keep it nice and safe. It does mean there'll be plenty of ironing to do come Edinburgh. Oh joy.

I have also started to think about what clothes I want to take up, and have taken some jumpers out of winter storage. I was going to write just in case there, but it's Edinburgh in August so I'll be sure to use them at least once. I think I'm packing too much though. I've also stuck some DVDs and my Xbox in the case so will have plenty of watching to do. I'm looking forward to viewing Arrested Development season 3, The Wire season 1, Sopranos season 5, West Wing season 2, and re-watching Summer Heights High and The Office : An American Work Place season 3. That and seeing plenty of things in Edinburgh. That reminds me, I also need to google cinemas so I can find where I can go see Dark Knight.

Matt my promoter gets back from being in LA and NYC with Ricky Gervais this week, so he'll no doubt be getting annoyed with my many calls to him about stuff, but the lovely Amy has been looking after all my things in the meantime. Between us we're trying to find a nice bit of fabric to cover up my flight case that I'll stick the TV on... it needs to be sparkly and showbiz. Talking of sparkly I'm still thinking about buying some shiny showbiz shoes.

This week I went to see Tim Minchin and Ed Byrne try out some material, which was brilliant. I had a nice bite to eat and catch up with Tim before the show and saw him try a brand new song, which is just fantastic, and very catchy. It'll be bringing a smile to the faces of many in Edinburgh.

I've a really busy week coming up, my last preview on Monday at the Canal Cafe, then the props go up to Edinburgh, I have 3 days of work at Radio 1, then a day off, then I'm down to Bristol to see my family and in Cardiff filming some bits for BBC Wales, then before I know it, it'll be Monday morning and I'll be on the train (£52 first class return, BARGAIN!) from London up to Edinburgh to being the mammoth adventure that is the fringe.

Till next time,

Chris x
www.chriscox.info

P.S. If you like my blog, come see my show. I'm on at the Pleasance every day at 6.20pm performing Chris Cox : Control Freak. Book tickets here.

And so it begins...

Well, this is the start of the blogging then... best introduce myself.

I'm Chris. Hello. How do you do? Are you well? Yes? Splendid. Look, here's a picture of me ----->

I'm fine thanks for asking. I'm very happy and proud to be blogging for Broadway Baby, a site that has supported me with wonderful reviews of my last two shows... so thanks for having me.

So today is 2 weeks before I go to Edinburgh for yet another month of sun, sea, sand, and comedy... only one of those is true. Can you guess which? It's not like it's hard or anything.

I am exceptionally excited about this year's festival, it's the first time that I've done it with people behind me. Last year I had a scarily well received, sell out run at the Gilded Balloon, which I did all off my own back, the year before I did just 9 shows at C Central, again I did all that off my own back. Now this year. This year I'm doing the whole run again, in a venue which is twice as big as last year's at the Pleasance with a proper promoter, pr team and agent behind me. All this means is one thing... PRESSURE.

It really feels like a difficult second album this year, and I've been trying so hard to make sure the show will be as enjoyable, fun, amazing and incredible as last years. In fact I started work on it in September 2007, just after Edinburgh. I thought about ideas till January 2008 then started writing it. The writing was done by the end of April and the first preview was early May. It was 90 minutes.. the show needs to be 55. It took 5 previews to get it down to time, and now I find I only have one left on the 21st July at the Canal Cafe.... come on down if you want. Then that's it, I go to Edinburgh and do it for a month before then going on tour.

I'll write more about my plans, thoughts, feelings and about the show in other posts, I shall introduce you to the people who will be part of my life in Edinburgh.

In fact. I'll do that now. I was thinking that I'd do photos for them all, but I'll add them at a later date. Basically I'll talk about the following people in my posts, and this'll help you know who they are.

Ben: My best friend, co-director and co-writer of the show and stage manager. Without him I wouldn't be anywhere near as good as I am. He comes to Edinburgh with me and we'll be sharing a flat. I expect he'll do most of the cleaning and I'll be playing XBox (yes I'm taking my Xbox)

Matt: My promoter and the biggest fan of Entourage ever. He's from the lovely people at Phil McIntyre who promote my show, and I am so chuffed to be part of their fab line up of shows. If you've seen the Ricky Gervais Fame DVD behind the scenes stuff, you'll have see Matt. If you see him, shout VICTORY! He'll love it.

Tori, Lisa and Nat: My Agents off of Karushi, three lovely people who look after me real good. I like them very much.

Mel and Bex: Off of the Impressive PR, they'll be getting my face in papers and stuff.

There'll be others.. but we'll meet them as we come along.

Okay that's it for now.... I'm going to try work out the shows I want to try see while in Edinburgh. I'll tell you about them when I've decided.

Chris x
www.chriscox.info