They say doing stand-up is the hardest job - so how hard is promoting a comedy show? In this episode, Steve Gribbin and Paul Ricketts interview performer and promoter, Kevin Precious, proprietor of Barnstormers Comedy, who have nights in Art Centres and venues across England - from the South Coast, the Home Counties, the Midlands and Hull and back. If you're interested in getting involved or finding out more about live promotion or performance, then this show irreverently pulls back the curtain on the world of professional comedy.
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[00:00:00] You can count the punters on one hand But not sweet they were completely wrapped
[00:00:12] They were filled up to the gunnold They were spewing down the street
[00:00:16] They said you should have been your last week
[00:00:19] I swear you should have been your last week
[00:00:23] Oh yeah, you should have been your last week teacher hence he looks like Jesus. He does a bit actually. Yeah, yeah. And I should imagine he said he said the word Jesus many, many times when a comic is wrong and what this card broken down or she's you know had an emergency or they just can't be bothered. Yeah, he's probably even asked for divine intervention. Why? Why me? He has been at it a long time, isn't he?
[00:02:44] gigs all over England. I think you're one of the few I could possibly, in fact, you might be the only one I could think of outside major chains.
[00:02:46] I suppose quite a lot of promoters are fairly localised, aren't they? I mean,
[00:02:51] I could think of something like Mirth, if you like, Jess, of where there's gigs
[00:02:55] here, there and everywhere, but it's kind of more on a freelance space. This is
[00:02:59] opposed to what I do, which is that part of the coprom teacher. I'd started doing comedy earlier, but I didn't want to throw my entire line with it. So what I did is I started promoting gigs also as co-promotions with Steven Newby, and probably both remember that. So I had to access to stage time and could keep a hand in as far as the comedy community
[00:04:22] was concerned within my own immediate vicinity.
[00:04:26] There was a lot of caution at first and then we decided we'd like to expand the idea further. I mean, I actually hadn't established a promoter, so I said to, I'm doing it, you can see for the need just pretty much left him. That'd be good. And then, but then very quickly me and Stephen, so it developed a rap war and decided we were gonna do stuff.
[00:05:40] Elsewhere as well,
[00:05:41] the secret one was pretty much a success trial.
[00:05:44] A secret band theater, I would say, I have some respect for the ads. You see a lot of people get a bit loudy-tards sometimes on the pro comedies thing. These are the acts who play this, so this is the standard we expect.
[00:07:00] And there's a constant sort of feeling that the are other species again, I suppose, the same way that acts are. And I suppose there is overall more ego involved than there is if you just maybe come work in,
[00:08:21] I don't want to ride anything,
[00:08:22] but maybe you don't work in Morrison's.
[00:08:24] It's just, so you can suggest this counter productive. But you don't tend to wrap those conversations because promoters don't have as much access to each other as access to. I agree with you that they are sometimes more eccentric than the axial. Yeah, a little bit of megalomania. The idea, I mean, I see that famous phrase, I think it's a Scratching Napoleon, isn't it?
[00:09:41] England is a nation of shopkeepers.
[00:09:43] Yes.
[00:09:44] It's very much like that.
[00:09:46] Very much like that. I just want the audience to have a good time and feel that the audience have had a good time. Have you ever had that situation where someone's done that to you? Open a club like you know, couple of hundred yards down the road or so near as it's taken the piss. Well, yeah, same building. Where was that? I mean, I'm not privy to say at the moment,
[00:11:02] but people do. Oh, right. Okay. But it seems to work. Sometimes mean I had the conversation the other way with somebody that I mean a lot of people at a certain age you know say let's say 50 and above and you do get them 50 and 60 something and are very welcome. Do you have what we used to call disposable income? You know
[00:13:43] I feel sorry for younger people because it does seem as though every penny they have either So, Friday, I'm in Kent, MCN. Which is how many living Kent? Indeed. So, in that respect, you are correct. Well, I mean, I always thought of Kent, actually. This is kind of misguided I want. I mean, I want Kent too much into the people here, but I always thought Kent would be the most enlightened place in relation to proximity to Europe.
[00:13:45] So, I thought, are think is going to happen? A lot more people do in it, a lot less. I suppose in that way it's slightly more demystified.
[00:15:00] It's not that difficult a thing to set up a gig. It's never, who was it said, never predict anything, especially the future. I don't know, it's recently what I thought was really good. A really excellent example of bypassing any notion of gatekeepers, be they promoters, be gathering up steam again and I'm hearing lots of reports of clubs are fuller and I didn't have such a great autumn as a promoter, but January and February have been pretty good so far. But you would anticipate that if then when we'd known there was a problem doing a try maintain a level of quality whilst keep me out of the water at the same time. So what do you think makes a good comedy it? It's moaning refrained as humour. But moaning for money is that's probably a positive but if I doubt it doesn't mean the door isn't still open.
[00:21:40] So what happens to someone else you're for feedback it and you have a blinding game. And you never get another book. Oh yes, would you book an act if they absolutely stormed it but you find it very hard to get home with them. Yeah, it's financially expedient, yes, but you just invite them to get there a bit later
[00:23:04] don't you before the speed. That was an open goal, that was. Yeah, despite everything I just said. I did not have been so many. It's impossible to list because a lot of them just go on their own merits anyway. Well last one then, who was the last one who ripped it? I was so... I hadn't worked with Kane Brown before Saturday.
[00:24:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:25] He's very good.
[00:24:26] Yeah.
[00:24:27] I have a better word. that's the best company's ever seen is himself and enjoyed that though. Yes, it was good. We'll move on now to the comedians lexicon phrase of this episode and it of them were dead, most of them were dead, but you know, come on, come on, we're going to do it. We've had that very recently on our own circuit, haven't we? Because of, and it applies to acts as well with the famous case of a person that's gone to, well, it's going to go to prison and has been convicted of various offences.
[00:28:03] there will be one day, which is, well, I don't know. You may have gone mad with a semi-automatic rifle,
[00:28:05] but he's very nice to me.
[00:28:07] He's wrong, yeah.
[00:28:07] Very always like to.
[00:28:09] Always like to, yeah.
[00:28:10] Hey, yeah.
[00:28:11] Yeah.
[00:28:12] So, yeah, so that is, they've always been nice to me.
[00:28:18] So that's the end of this particular episode of the podcast.
[00:28:21] And as always, I will say, if you watch this on YouTube,
[00:29:27] or even words to add to our lexicon of comedic words, please, please go ahead and contact us. So this is the end of the episode which we are dedicating in the memory of Garf Richards,
[00:29:32] and a lovely comic who recently died in a tragic accident and will be much missed on the circuit,
[00:29:39] so this one's for you Garif, and we'll see you on the next one.