The other glimmer of hope in the ever darkening nebula of my gaseous comedy career is the possibility of more cruise gigs. Though i ain’t received a ‘report’ back – better to hear the report of a gun some would say – i have had instructions to make my calendar available for next year. Possibly a new kind of onboard comedy club will be set up by a northern company – aye lad. well, it might be a bit too early to get excited, but fingers crossed.

I was also tentatively offered something for this week, but, while i could do it if i left on sunday when the ship departed i couldn’t actually leave on the saturday, which is what they wanted ideally. The gig last nigh – the saturday – was a 60th birthday in andover. Everyone was dressed in Peaky Blinders theme. flat caps on the men, women as flappers. the DJ helped me set up the far from ideal room, to help get the audience focus: a chair moved here. a light turned on there, plus of course we shut the bar, and the roulette etc. (yes there was mini roulette). It worked, and thsi time i got Tony – the birthday boy – up to do the darth vader with me.

___

Went for lunch in carmarthen on friday, what a fabulous meal we had, wendy and i, at the Rose & Crown. beforehand I spent 20 mins walkin the streets saying ‘shwd mae’ to strangers just to see if i could hear some spoken welsh – yes i got a few shwd mae’s back.

On friday night i got a lift from the gentleman geography teacher from Penllerger, and up comin’ comic, Daf Rhys, to a gig in Hungerford. Now that was a very welsh journey – that’s all we spoke in the car. while the car was amazin, the audience we found was a relatively timid looking bunch in a sombre church hall…However they laughed in the right places at all the right things. and to be honest it was a very uplifting gig. Hungerford is a quaint village full of orante buildings, some thatched.

and i got to see Sian Doughty – not her stage name – a londoner of welsh extraction. she has a very original act, combining bawdiness, carry on, with a 70s sit-com/abigail’s Party…her stage name is Sally Firth which, and apparently not a lot people spot this, is a parody of sally forth.

Daf was good and got some big laughs. he’s been takin time out as he’s had a kid.

The following day i went back to just south of Hungerford – Andover. Here i performed at a bloke’s 60the birthday party. it was a themed evening, with everyone dressed in Peaky Blinders’ costumes.

lack of pre-sales is constantly bandied around by the bookers….so, in the last week i’ve had 4 gigs in or around august cancelled. amazingly, a day later i get a message from Lee Jones jr – he gives me four dates for his ROFL club in Newcastle-under-Lyme. I did the first one on wednesday, the audience were military. so i lose my head a bit on stage – no other way of entertaining squaddies. i mean, what do you do when, as soon as you’ve opened your mouth, a bloke does a sheep noise? of course, it’s just a joke, and so is my response which includes the words ‘english cunts’…they seemed to like my stuff overall, but i did slightly too long.

I like ROFL, though Mr Jones does have a mixed rep on the circuit. But then it seems so do i – more later.

Also, did a gig in Wetherby – philosophical place, wetherby or wethernotby – which went ok. but i admit i have been smokin a bit too much jazz woodbine of late. this might explain why, as i did one of my opening gags i got some factual information within it wrong. Basically i got prince harry’s name mixed up with his brother william’s….i finished the joke, but as i did so the audience is shouting ‘Harry!’, to correct me. Oh dear. I had to backtrack a little. though i think the rest of my set was good, but they were a little unforgiving after that, and my stuff came across as too clever, so i had to really pull out the stops. i mean there was a quorum of people who liked me, but because – i think – of the fucked up opening some people resolutely didn’t ‘get’ me, a couple ’til the end. However, at the end i went full on into crowd interaction mode, and got a bloke up to help me to the Darth Vader impression. I do believe i won them across.

In the end…….

things are not great. i can t handle the way life is going, i’ve had 4 £500 gigs pulled. the BGT tour…ha ! also had my one man show at Volcano Theatre cancelled. always with the lack of pre-sales line.

did i mention eleri and i got lucky because we found someone’s case for them. he was a rich bloke who came to pick it up in a Ferrari. we got given a £200 token for a hotel in Malvern, and a £80 token for Malvern theatres.

why am i so lazy? what is wrong with me ? i have ideas but can’t get them down on paper, and feel glad to just live a life of dreaming and thinking. been writing poetry, or was until my muse left me. A muse but not amusing.

getting better though as a performer. Finally managed to get a video on Next Up for to stream. Llive at Llanelli – 15 minutes of gold.

yeah sorry about that last weird post. i don’t really do this blog for presentation purposes. i do it for myself some of the time. i can’t tell you what ‘s gone down. my heart’s broken though, i know cos i been wearing it on my sleeve of late.

Forbidden Planet is based on The Tempest. life in the last few weeks has been too much to bare in some ways, but fine in others. what is the pain of heart break but the proof of love ? after all….i remember when politics was boring in this country, but now it’s like someone’s resigning or being arrested every other week.

did a two 50 minute set show in Necastle under Lyme….that was handy last minute filler. i been spending money like water…through my penis. did Cu Mumbles- but only 4 people turned up. still we did a good show.

12/06/23 09:34

hello

sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you.

i am going to tell you in detail what happened when i got to the homestay, so be aware that some of the language might be offensive .

FIRSTLY, you should know that there is a review by member of public on this property’s page, and the title is ‘Scam’ – this review more or less follows exactly what happened to me, though i would say my experience was worse.

I arrived at the property around 5pm. i had driven down from Heathrow airport, having flown in from isle of Man. I was very tired, it was a friday and the traffic was bad.

when i got to the house it looked vaguely empty on the outside, and it took a long time for someone to get to the front door. eventually a man opened the door. he looked and talked like he’d just got out of bed. he was the landlord ‘Zoom’, who also calls himself Victor Samuel. as soon as i told him i had a room booked his response was surprise, and he kept saying he had someone else booked in.

he led me up to his ‘office’ which was his bedroom. i only had to glance around to see this house is a fleapit, a hovel, very horrible in terms of cleanliness. It looked disgusting, and not fit to stay over in.

Anyway, he took his smart phone from his pocket and proceeded to scroll, trying to find my booking. he couldn’t find it. and again he kept saying that i wouldn’t be able to stay as someone else is booked in.

i started asking him about getting my money back.

While we were talking a door opened behind me, outside on the landing. a second man came through and starting talking to Zoom, asking him effectively ‘was this guy causing problems?’

He seemed to suggest that my chat with the landlord had woken him up, This second man called my attention and began to talk to me in a very uncivil way…he used the word fuck several times. again he accused me causing trouble and talking too loud. I was incredulous that this was happening to me.

as i was still trying to sort out the problem with Zoom i turned to the second man and told him not to interfere. His tone was definitely aggressive, and threatening. In fact i knew immediately that i had to get out of there, – this place felt more like a prison common room than a homestay.

While this second man was verbally abusing me the landlord stayed sat on bed, very nonchalant, he didn’t seem bothered in any way, and did not tell his friend to stay out of it.

I had to tell the second man to be quiet, and he then got even nastier and called me a cunt.

after a few minutes second man went back in to his room

Coincidentally, at the time Zoom received a call on his phone, which was on speaker, and i heard a male voice saying he was coming around soon to stay over that night. the word ‘prison’ was mentioned. Zoom said yes he’d see him later.

I then proceeded to to get Zoom to organise a refund for me. He had by now found my booking on his phone. but there was no 4 digit pin number on it for some reason, neither was there a 4 digit pin on the email i had (though there was a res. number).

He now had found a tel no for Booking.com and phoned it – or claimed he did – and we both heard the BC voice message on his phone ask for a pin number, which of course we didn’t have to hand. So that was a pointless excercise, as no one answered the phone

Please remember EVERYTHING i’m telling you here is truth and i would be happy to stand up in court to say it.

I told Zoom i couldn t wait, as i was tired and would have to find somewhere else to stay, He mentioned that he knew some people in the area who might b able to put me up – but of course there was no way i was going to have anything to do with him or his friends after this encounter.

I left his house and drove into town to the nearest hotel i could find, First i tried the Ibis Budget hotel but it was sold out. then i got a room at the regular Ibis , which cost me a £100. I have the receipt for that.

The situation i found myself in at this property was scary, and i felt like i could have come to some harm had i said the wrong thing. the second man – who could have been a lodger- at one point challenged me to look at him, saying ‘Oi mate. Oi mate’ repeatedly. I refused to look at him to which his response was ‘i thought so’. in other words he was right in thinking i was a coward. (truth is i didn t want a physical confrontation).

I am amazed that this place is on your website, especially considering previous reviews like the one i reference above.

This is what happened to me the day i went to stay at Southsea, a booking i had made aprox 2 weeks before arriving there. So far i have not received a refund from you of the money i paid. So can you remedy this please ?

I would also like the money i spent on Ibis hotel refunded as well. I didn t want to stay there, but had to in the circumstances.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email, and let me know what you intend to do now.

Regards

Noel James