Ten years of Monday nights: a decade at DDG

After my first Duck Duck Goose improv jam, I wrote in my diary ‘I’m definitely going back to return as often as I can’. That entry was from Monday 13th April 2015. Little did I know not only would I go again, but I would continue keeping Monday nights free for the show a full decade later.

Ten years! That’s almost a third of my life. Of the five hundred plus nights DDG has run, I have been part of at least four hundred. The key to my longevity? I simply started going every week and just didn’t stop. By now, I'm the equivalent of Kenan Thompson at SNL: I wasn’t there when it began, but it seems like I’ve been there forever.

At this point, DDG is so ingrained in my routine that I cannot imagine my life without it. The show is a part of me now. It would be impossible to extract it from my being without killing me.

The joys this show has brought me are innumerable. Without DDG, my calendar would be sparser, my social life poorer. The jam is a great space to laugh, play, and make friends. It kickstarts my week. It helps me get in my improv reps. It means I regularly see my besties. 

It gives me a front row seat to see almost all of the improv teams London has to offer. It’s a place my family and colleagues can watch me in action. It's one of the best rooms I’ve ever played as an act.

DDG is the closest I’ll get to being in a real-life Muppet Show. I am grateful and lucky that it exists in my lifetime.

Ten years is an arbitrary milestone, but remember that we, like everything in improv, exist for just a moment. Our scene could be cut at any time. We never know the final punchline. To stay with anything for a tenth of a century is miraculous and noteworthy. This is why I wanted to mark it.

One key skill in improv is the ability to remember. It is useful to keep in mind everything that has been said (including – and this is difficult - your own character’s name) so you can build on it. Yet, while what we do next is inspired by what has come before, you must also exist in the present. What’s true now might not be so in two seconds, so process what’s new, react, and be changed by it.

In this spirit, while ten years is a nice round number, reaching it is not as important as what’s in front of me. Racking up tons of hours onstage and being a familiar face in a community won’t guarantee I have a good show. I need to exist in the now.

While it is comforting to reminisce about past prompts, jokes, and scenes, I cannot dwell on them. There’s another jam coming up, a chance for a new round of memories. I have no clue whether I'll be at the show forever, but today all I need to know is that there is a show on Monday.

Keep Your Hobbies Fun: Why I choose to enjoy the level where I am.

'I can't wait to see to see what you do next.'

They were words of encouragement, but they sent me for a spin. Next? I haven't finished having fun with this project, let alone thought of what to follow it up with. I was proud to be making One Good Thing. Now I must devise a second?

When it comes to your career, I appreciate that it is important to always think of where you are going next. A gap in the CV will be questioned. It will look like you do not have ambition or are lazy.

What are the rules when it comes to something you pursue for fun?

I consider myself successful in many areas of my life, not because I have moved up, but because I have stayed still. I have managed to keep some of my creative ventures going for over five years. Keeping any role for half a decade, regardless of whether it is the job that pays your bills or serving as treasurer of the Taunton Crochet Club, is an achievement. If you enjoy what you are doing, why change?

Again, I must stress, in a hobby. If you are a decent employee who adds value to a company, you should ideally get more responsibilities and/or money. Unless you are the treasurer of the Taunton Crochet Club – in which case. that money stays in the communal purse, damnit!

I have previously turned down the opportunity to start teaching improv. This was for a multitude of reasons, the simplest of which is that I did not want to. I like running a show and still find that a thrill, so, although I could do that alongside running classes, I said no. I was less concerned about my continual professional development and more interested in following the fun.

This brings me to the question of what I will do next.

As of 2019, I have written four series of my comedy zombie noir podcast, Dead Drunk Detective. In addition to scripting all twenty-seven episodes, I also cast and direct the show alongside my producer, Katharine*. This figurative wearing of multiple hats means I have a big influence on the project. It also means I am frequently fretting about it.

When I eventually wrap up Dead Drunk Detective, would I want to take on the challenge of creating another show? Currently, I do not know. Then again, people say that about having more children, then some tricksy hormones make them forget all about the pain sufficiently long enough that they in fact do go through it all again.
At least, I think that is what I was taught in biology. I don’t remember – I was too busy shushing my rowdier classmates.

Maybe, after all these many months apart from friends, it would be refreshing to get people together not for the sake of a project, but to just hang out. One of my first podcasts at uni was basically an excuse to invite pals and funny acquaintances to tell me their stories. Now why have that contrivance?

Speaking of The Booth, that panel show was one of my first Good Ideas and a format I really have been trying to top ever since. Eventually, like a lot of creatives who find something that hits early in their career, I took the easy route: I revived it. Twice.

My thinking was that I like doing it, I know how it works, and it is a chance to play with my friends. Most crucially - and now I hit upon a key reason Dead Drunk Detective may be a little more work than it has to be – its release does not have to tie-in with an annual holiday.

Herein lies the solution. Just as with my decision not to start teaching, I should continue to create, but on my terms. In devising a show that must appear on or by Halloween, I managed to make the fraught role of showrunner even more stressful. It was like deciding that juggling swords wasn’t hard enough, so I opted to do it while walking across a tightrope.

If – and it would still be a big ‘if’ even without a pandemic draining my will to write – I do run another series, I will give myself the space to enjoy it. Having no deadlines at all guarantees something never gets down, but casually committing to something might be the way to go. After all, I’m not being paid for any of it.

* Katharine has written a guide to creating podcasts for your business! It will no doubt be excellent. Download the book.

Dead Drunk Detective: How we Made Series One

Turns out that it is true the key to success is not what you know, but who you know.

In a fortunate coincidence, I learnt that one of the very first people I met through improv comedy, Ed Fargher, was looking for projects to develop with radio producer extraordinaire Katharine Kerr. They wanted scripts. I had a full series of a show needing a home. Perfect.

The supernatural nature of the show made a Halloween release an obvious goal. We first met around May, so we had to move fast. Ed's cousin, Aimee Sajjan-Servaes, was quickly commissioned to create our superlative title card artwork. After having only been given the show’s premise and a few scripts to work with, Tom Hodge turned out an instantly perfect theme tune. There was also a little rebrand.

Before I thought the first script was anything other than a one-off, I had provisionally titled it after the district in which Johnny worked: Dead End. Ed and Katharine gently suggested that this was quite generic. The name was dropped as was the location idea - the show has since never been too specific about where it takes place.

When searching for an alternative title, we eventually agreed that the best option was the obvious one. What is the show about? A Dead Drunk Detective. It's simple and instantly gives you the elevator pitch. I also really appreciate the double meaning (he is dead, drunk, and dead drunk).

We decided to record the first series in front of a live audience (which appealed to me because of my love of radio comedies). We booked slots at The Actor’s Studio, a black box room in London. With the dates secured, we could now approach cast.

I pulled from the world of improv once again, staging a table read in July where people tried out for different roles. Not everyone in that room got a part, but some castings were instant locks. Except for one.

Pretty much all of the men in the room – including Ed – tried out for the titular role. One person we had been interested in however had not been available that night. I decided to contact him again, titling my message ‘would you like to play the wittiest most sarcastic person in every room?’.

That man was Arfie. I am incredibly lucky he said Yes and perpetually grateful that he continues to do so year on year.

Although we almost immediately lost him again as he had a date clash. Getting this news when I was at work, I started to formulate alternate plans while serving drinks. My panicked solution was to drop the first episode (which, as aforementioned, sets up so many things that the series would later run with) so we can record more shows across two nights instead of three. This idea was wisely vetoed.

Fortunately for the show (and my blood pressure), Arfie’s prior commitment ended up being cancelled. We had secured our dead drunk detective.

In a fitting twist, I then couldn’t make that recording. The first three episodes would shoot in September while I was out of town at a stag do (not my own).

I made both subsequent sessions despite the latter date coinciding with my mum’s birthday. I joined her for a restaurant lunch in the morning, headed to the theatre in the afternoon, then rushed to get to my bar shift. Now when we schedule recordings, I simply book the night off.

Katharine assembled edits of each edition, then sent them over to me for notes. This being a comedy, my suggested changes are either about someone's timing or absurd details like 'can the bogeyman's splat sound wetter?'. Of course it can! Katharine can do anything. She is an audio wizard.

The series launched on October 3rd 2016 with a double bill. The debut episode was 'Out for the Count' AKA the script that had started it all. From the first draft to podcast, it had probably taken three years to become a show. But what a show...

Dead Drunk Detective: How I Wrote Series One

Every year since 2016, I have written a new series of Dead Drunk Detective, my comedy zombie noir podcast. We usually release shows across October in the run-up to Halloween. However, there are no original episodes this year. You know why.

In lieu of fresh instalments of the zombie sleuth's adventures, I thought I would look back at the first four years. Instead of sharing new episodes, I will revisit the old. 

I do not know what form this will take. It could be personal essays. More likely, it will be episode guides akin to the ones I wrote about my sporadic podcast, The Booth. Whatever I plump for, it is obvious what I must cover first: the origin story.

Dead Drunk Detective is proof that you find a use for all your creative ideas eventually.

The first episode was written on a whim while I was at university, probably in the space of an afternoon and partly because I wanted to see if I could construct a solvable puzzle. My model was the pun-filled parodies which ended each edition of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue (their inspiration can also be seen in the closing ‘well, since you asked me for a story…’ segments of John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme). I often wrote little adventures like these for no reason other than it was fun and had previously started short radio spoofs of Robin Hood, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Wizard of Oz.

This script however did not seek to emulate a preestablished plot, but rather a genre full of tropes I best knew via spoofs on Whose Line. I did not truly have a particular affinity for film noir, horror, or indeed alcohol (although, aptly, I later worked as a bartender throughout the show’s run). Yes, I had, as a child, briefly toyed with being a detective, but that was more because I liked the look of a trench coat and dapper hat. I did enjoy the construction of a good mystery though, albeit initially because I was a huge fan of Scooby Doo.

Anyway, script complete, I duly typed it up and forgot about it. I then rediscovered it when rifling through old work to self-pitying moan about how talented I used to be (“oh, to be as sharp as I was when I was twenty-one!”). Surprised by how well it held up, I decided to try writing more. This was not necessarily because I had the means or drive to do a series. No, I most likely thought it was easier to build on a pre-existing idea rather than have to come up with a completely new one. Writers can be lazy like that.

The entire first series was reverse engineered from that initial edition. It is amazing how many integral aspects of the show come from that original dashed off script. The case of the week structure (which alternates between Johnny verbally sparring with Betty at the office and him investigating a crime) is in place from the very beginning. Hairy and Drac are characters I ended up using again and again because it was a joy to write for them. Johnny visits The Cough Inn, a location I realised in retrospect it made sense for an inebriated sleuth to visit multiple times, so it ended up being the setting for a mystery in episode six (which in turn led to the creation of deadpan bartender Jo, another stalwart of the show).

There is no real reason why there were seven episodes in the series instead of the traditional British sitcom run of six. I worked out the arc as I wrote and found once I was done that I had enough stories to fill seven. As episodes ended up being released weekly across October with the finale landing on Halloween, this meant a double bill to start and end the first season. Most subsequent runs are six episodes, plus a Christmas special in December.

Once the drafts were done, I made the series a coherent whole. During the rewrite, I reverse-engineered setups and added new recurring jokes, so even standalone episodes contributed to the ongoing plot. I now had myself a set of scripts that felt like a show, but what to do with it?

Having edited podcasts in university, I toyed with the prospect of producing it myself. However, these had been lowkey affairs with minimal production values (my panel show, The Booth, didn’t even have a theme song). To think I would have been able to engineer a recording session in addition to creating soundscapes and effects was a tad ambitious. For a start, I only owned one microphone! If this was to become a show, I would need help...

Five Things to Know about Improv: what I have learnt from half a decade of making stuff up

I have now been an improviser for five years. In that half decade, I have taken shows to festivals, co-hosted one of London’s longest-running jams, and played so many talking animals that I am probably owed a visit from Doctor Doolittle. I have now seen countless hours of people making stuff up in pub theatres across the capital (and done a fair bit of it myself).

However, the intangible nature of the form means you always have more to learn. You are never a finished product. I have gained a little insight into the art though. Here are five important things I have learnt about improv.

Improv can make you a better communicator

Which, ironically, I was apparently unable to adequately get across in a job interview. Asked at a talent pool full of potential employers to give a two-minute presentation on something I was passionate about, I chose to explain why improvisation has helped me become a better speaker. Why I am now a more patient, less competitive conversationalist. How I focus on the topic being discussed instead of waiting to butt in with my own. That the discipline encourages you to discover the joys of collaboration.

Evidently, I made my hobby sound too engaging. The people who heard my talk told me it seemed whatever role offered me would be a consolation prize, second best to improv. One inquisitor said they used to enjoy painting but gave it up to pursue their office job. Which, to me, as a tragic summary of adulthood, cannot be topped.

I had explicitly stated in my opening paragraph of the speech I did not want a career in the art form.

Of course, even if I had wanted to make stuff up full-time, I could not because...

Improv is not a career

The most successful in-demand teachers and performers still hold down their nine to fives. Most people I know who perform at Edinburgh Fringe are freelancers or jobbing actors. I can count on one hand the number of London troupes big enough to tour.

The best way to make money in this field is teaching classes or doing running corporate workshops. It is extremely unlikely you are doing that daily, let alone making enough money from it.

Besides, if you take up your hobby as your career, what on earth will you do to relax?

Improv can easily become your entire life

Improv is moreish because you get instant affirmation, encouragement to make jokes, and an excuse to mess around with friends. It feels good to be with this community, so naturally you chase that high by doing more things with those people.

This can result in improvisers being the main people in your social circle. Even if your schedule is not dominated by rehearsals and shows, you will probably hang out with your fellow players as your go-to buddies. Although you are not technically performing while out and about, you may still be ‘on’, doing bits, and falling into shoptalk.

Improv should not become your entire life

If you do improv exclusively, then you’ll end up hating it, abandoning it, and having nothing to fall back on. Eat chocolate cake daily and you’ll soon grow sick of it. You need everything in moderation. To use Sarah Silverman’s maxim, make it a treat.

I am “lucky” in that the conclusion of my first improv course coincided with me getting a job which limited the amount of evenings I was free to pursue the form. This has meant I avoided overdoing it. Which I one hundred percent would have done for precisely the reasons I detailed in the section above.

I did come close to burning out though.

Once classes were done, my group kept meeting weekly to make stuff up. Soon we formed a team. Finding a format to work on gave our rehearsals focus. Then we developed a second idea which required its own evening to practice.

This meant we were doing a total of six hours of improv across two consecutive nights.

It was too much. The second session always suffered as we were exhausted.

Not only that, but one format did not play to our strengths. We always came in demotivated. We were struggling to master something we would never make work. Not realising the problem was that the structure did not serve us well, we instead ended up questioning whether we were actually any good at improv.

We eventually dropped that show in favour of the one that we were all psyched about. That is what saved us and the only reason why we are still going today. That love for our work has kept us going and yet…

Improv does not have to be for forever

When my team first formed, there were fourteen of us. Over the years, as is to be expected, people started to move on. Some left the community. Some left the country.

One person dropped out because the classes were a chance to learn something new, to get out of the house. They enjoyed the mucking around. They were not particularly interested in being a group that gigs.

Everyone finds their own point at which to stop.

Our group continued. We worked on a format, tried out a few drafts. We found one that works. For some, ticking that box and solving that problem was a satisfying way to end their tenure. They could walk away with pride. Ditto those who were part of our one hundredth ever gig.

I have not stopped.

It has been five years since I joined the community. It has also been almost five years since I started at my day job. I am attempting to find a nine to five so I can find a better work-life-improv balance, but until then, pretending to be a talking animal is a small part of my week. Maybe it is better that way. Perhaps in the future I will give it up entirely and pursue some other area of creativity. But, for now though, I will keep on painting.

'A whole load of fun': my tribute to DDG

Thanks to my endless bout of weekly plugs on social media, it is pretty easy to discover I co-host Duck Duck Goose. What is less public knowledge is I keep an extensive diary. To mark my one year anniversary of getting involved with London’s finest improv jam, I’ve scoured said records to collate this tribute to the only thing I ever want to do on Monday.

On Monday 13th April 2015, I went to my first ever DDG. I had an inauspicious start...…

I go the wrong way out of the tube and then, when I do get the right direction, I wonder if Google is trying to kill me as it leads down dark tunnels to what looks like a collection of wooden huts. One of these is the venue.

However my reaction to the show is anything but.

Such a great event. I’m definitely going back to return as often as I can.

This response is not a one-off. Indeed, judging from my entries, I use the word ‘fun’ more often than Jimmy Fallon.

‘Duck Duck Goose is a whole load of fun’ 

‘It's a very fun show’

‘So many fun friends in tonight’

‘[I had] Two great scenes. Lots of fun had’

‘Such a fun night’ 

My limited range of descriptions also include ‘ace’, ‘brilliant’, ‘incredible’, ‘great’, and ‘good’.

Exactly four months after making my debut there, this happened.

Vic and Mark invite me to officially be part of the DDG team… as I’m such a hard-core regular (ironically, I’ll miss next week’s sesh for [Kit]’s graduation)

I’ve been co-hosting and jamming with DDG ever since. It’s such a blast. Every show has something good.

‘The show is notable though for us surprising Liam… with a birthday card depicting bananas AFTER IT HAD BEEN HIS TEAM’S PROMPT. That is some Derren Brown shit right there. Or someone in the audience had signed said card. Whatever’

‘The room is packed... people had to sit on tables and the sofas either side of the room’ 

 ‘In a later group scene, I blurted out in a response to a mention of 'wigs', 'is that W-H-I-G or W-I-G?'. Mark then tagged all but me out so he could say how much he appreciated that joke'

Sure, not every moment has been amazing…

‘In the jam I only get in two scenes, one of which I used clumsy exposition setup “sorry Dorian Grey, I left my tent in your attic, could I go get it?”’

‘In the jam I came on in response to a call for a kid and, panicking, did a Mickey Mouse voice’

‘We’re all tired by the time we get to the stage which probably explains why some of the scenes didn’t go anywhere or were written off as the result of drugs or us being products of someone’s imagination. Oh well, at least I got to play a duck and a wrestler called The Bridge’

And onstage I can have doubts…

[Anand] says I’m very quick-witted and energetic which is nice to hear because when I’m onstage time seems slow and it seems ages since you said anything and if you do say something was it any good etc etc

Plus the occasional unwise impulse…

My one word prompt with Stef[f] is ‘delicate’. I immediately collapse to the floor, a move I regret as the back of my head hurts for a while after.

But when an event provides me with one of my favourite photos ever taken of me...

'All I know is I ended the scene cradled in Tai's arms as I napped'
Photo credit: Amar Chundavadra.

A team Christmas dinner can be described (in a manner which could very much apply for DDG shows in general) like thus...

‘One of the most enjoyable days of my life. The atmosphere is so relaxed… It’s such a warm loving safe environment. It feels like a proper family gathering’

And terrific line-ups leave me ecstatic enough to write stuff like this:

‘The two acts are totally different and totally brilliant’

‘There were two rounds of twoprov with no dud scenes between them’

‘Every scene in Duck Duck Goose is incredible’

It’s easy to see why I’ve stuck around. I love you, team! Here’s to the years to come.

Sketches VS Improv

Whilst discussing improv with my Granddad, he asked me a question I’d never considered before  - what is there to stop people writing up your scenes and passing them off as their own material?

Well, obviously there’s nothing (short of hiring a bouncer to frisk people for pens), but in response to this surprising query, I surprised myself with my answer.

‘Nobody would want to do that because sketches and improv scenes are very slightly different.’

Up until then, I had not considered nor articulated that point. I agree with it though.

Sure, on a surface level, the two seem to have a similar shape and use the same devices - recurring characters, catchphrases and callbacks. Only playing one idea at a time – but they’re different beasts.

The most glaring contrast clearly is how they’re formed. In improv, you organically discover something fun together. With sketches, it’s just you versus a blank page. Is it any wonder then that I’ve barely scribed any skits since committing my nights to improv? And I’m on the committee of the London Comedy Writers. I should be inspired to churn out pieces weekly!

But no. I can’t go back to scripts now. The creative process of improv is far more joyful. It produces exciting one-off ‘you had to be there’ moments every single time you go onstage. The audience gives you more leeway than they would with prewritten material because they know that you don’t know what you’re doing.

Which brings me onto a further distinction: audience expectations. Recently an improv coach called me out for being witty at the top of a scene. That’s my old sketch instincts kicking in – I’m used to aiming for that first laugh as soon as possible. You walk on with a joke at the top of a sketch and the audience love it because they’re expecting three minutes of wall to wall gags. You’ve given them what they want.

This doesn’t necessarily work with improv. As said coach pointed out, if you start with a witty line, someone has to follow it up with a wittier one in order to build momentum. A joke contest then ensues and any chance of a story or character developing dies. The audience is amused but you’ve robbed yourself and them of a more interesting scene that actually had no obligation to be funny. Improv can be straight scenes or impressions or games. There is no one tone or style.

And so to my third distinction: pacing. Sketches often race to get their premise out hence why they frequently start with exposition-heavy dialogue that nails their situation like ‘the delegates are late, ambassador’, ‘we need a new name for Cheetos’, and, famously, ‘ello, I’d like to register a complaint’.

Improv players, however, have the luxury of time. They can start scenes by making eye contact, silently sizing each other up, and assessing whether anything about their partner’s body language or position on stage suggests what type of dynamic or situation to play. They cannot rush to their premise until they have found and agreed upon it. Their first line doesn’t have to be funny or informative (although obviously if it’s the latter, that’s brilliant– specificity and context is reassuring. Once an audience gets the setup, they will follow you anywhere). It just has to be the first ball over the net in a tennis rally that gets the game going. Improv can be a far more relaxed affair.

And it’s this aspect that would get lost in the write up of a spontaneous skit. Yes, tightening scenes would make them more concise, get to key details earlier, but cutting to the chase would be far less fun for both performer and observer. For everyone involved, the Eureka Moment is exhilarating, the relief intense. The unintentional delayed gratification is what makes improv special. Sketches can withhold key details – on the radio you can reveal within the punchline that both characters were squirrels – but they do so on purpose because they knows when to play a trump card. Improvisers aren’t even sure they’ll have a card. That mystery is what keeps their form fresh and interesting and makes it ultimately more thrilling than sketch.

My Granddad’s other question was whether I get paid for gigs. Uh, pass.

Happy Birthday Train

As of 11th October 205, there has been a Late Train running for five years. And no, it's not National Rail's fault. The blame goes entirely to James D Irwin. Or, as I call him, 'Irwin'. Never 'James'. It is always the full name or surname. Or that inebriate with the voice like a dirty phone call.

Said inebriate.

Let me clarify. The Late Train is in fact a comedy night. It is on once a month in Winchester at a pub called the Railway. It has now been running for five years.

Who cares?

I do. I did a lot of fun stuff at that night. It’s where I recorded a radio play, gave stand up a serious go, recieved my first heckle, first tried live improv… I also co-hosted the whole thing for two years.

From Autumn 2012 to Summer 2014, the Late Train was run by me and my double act partner, Dan. In between comedians, we did sketches, most of which involved Adam and Eve or Santa (but never Adam and Eve and Santa), and Dan occasionally did solo routines. Which led to odd scenes in which I’d introduce him after we'd already been onstage together for five minutes. It worked. Well, even if it didn’t, we were in charge so…

Two excellent comedians. And two guys who do an okay job of introducing them.

We inherited the night from James D Irwin, the night’s founder and our friend (despite one of us once describing him as ‘that inebriate with the voice like a dirty phone call’). He’d started it as a student comedy night to give himself some stage time in a town with no open mic, but the free show soon grew until it was attracting acts from afar (and I don’t mean Southampton).

It’s not hard to see why the Late Train got such a good reputation. The small room is intimate, its cosiness reinforced by the stage décor of a rug and a lamp-stand. It essentially looks like someone’s lounge. The bar and bathroom is downstairs so there’s no punters wondering around looking for a pint or a piss. The audience is generous. Everyone wants to be there. The acts have fun. Plus, if you really hate the show, the train station’s across the road.

Hence why the bar is called The Railway…

Not the usual stage set-up - this is for my radio recording. Also, look, rugs!

Of course the night’s never been perfect. Dan and I once found we’d have to share a mic. One night there was a persistent heckler who it transpires was a wannabe comic who thought he was helping. A few of the open mic acts were drunk. Which is why we don’t put our friends on anymore.

That’s a joke. The Late Train is a safe friendly place in which to give stuff a go so where better for mates and acquaintances to see if telling gags is their thing? Some had smashing debuts whilst others stuck to their day job, but at least they had the opportunity to give it a go in front of a forgiving crowd.

This picture is misleading. We'd get at least three times this many people in. 

And what a crowd. I don’t know if a quaint friendly town inherently produces quaint friendly people, but Winchester’s audiences were never less than lovely. The front row were always up for a Q&A. The magician who now hosts is never short of volunteers. It was always a pleasure to perform at the Late Train. I only gave it up because I moved to London.

But not before Dan moved to Bournemouth. He duly came in once a month to host a free show for no money before rushing out during the second half to catch a train home. If that’s not a sign of how much we love The Late Train, nothing is.

After we left, the host was recast as often as Spiderman. It went from a satirist to a musician to its current ringmaster, magician Wayne the Weird. He’s presenting the anniversary show on October 11^th. Do go – it is, was, and will be the best thing in town. Besides, what else would you be doing on a Sunday?