80s History of Musical Celebrity Space Dinosaurs called Charlie

MJ Hibbett’s full-cast (two-man) rock musical Dinosaur Planet began my day of history. A story of when dinosaurs from space invaded the UK (to be specific, Norwich) and then giant robots did the same, told by MJ (who I’m guessing most of my readers – ok, my reader – will know from the Hey Hey 16k song) and Steve Hewitt. Songs included The Battle of Peterborough and (my favourite) Literature Search, as the dinosaurs marched on the little Lincolnshire village of Stamford, in Lincolnshire. Low budget and entertaining.

Steve Pretty also had a looping pedal! Never heard of it before, and now two uses in two days, what are the odds. Steve was also Helen Arney’s snail playing a mini-harmonica yesterday, which is where I heard about his show. What I most remember from Steve’s routine on the history of pop music was not the playing of the first phonograph song on motorcycle helmet, or our stone age jam session, but the comparison that Candiru is to your urethra as Crazy Frog is to your ear, and (when at the Radiophonic Workshop stage) a very clever creation of the Doctor Who theme using the looping pedal and echo effect.

Charlie Talbot was my third act of today at the GRV. I’ve found a number of comedians I’m seeing appear to be around my age, which means it can be quite thoughtful when their act muses about their life, obviously bringing me to compare to my own. After finding he’s being replaced in his own show, Charlie muses on the wide variety of jobs he’s held in his life, from bassist to headhunter; he’s also an AFC Wimbledon fan (woo, down the MK Dons), and has a copy of something by Plato signed by B. B. King, which I was quite impressed by 🙂 Towards the end, he also talked about his depression, in a very open and honest manner, providing thought as well as humour; I thoroughly enjoyed his show.

Down to the Caves for soup and then Eric’s Laws of the Land, in which Eric tells us of things he would like to ban, improve, or change. Thankfully, as a pedant in this arena, this didn’t once mention things that someone thought was a law but isn’t in any way; it was more things like people who buy you a bad Christmas present will be fined the cost of what you actually wanted (including postage).

Over to the Udderbelly for Celebrity Autobiography, in which various people including Mark from Ugly Betty and Norm from Cheers (yeah, I’m sure they have real names too) read excerpts from, umm, celebrity autobiographies. This is of course hilarious, especially Tiger Woods’ guide to putting from How I Play Golf, joint readings from Katie Price and Peter Andre (with Bridget Christie as Katie, hooray), and the telling of Liz Taylor stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds through the varying perspectives of each involved.

I ended the day with some PBH free fringe over at Cabaret Voltaire, with Back to the 80s, a sketch show of many different 80s references, including someone buying Kitt from a used-car salesman, Hannibal Lecter on Blind Date, and ET phoning home to be told off for waking them up.

I’m now becoming a little obsessed with seeing acts’ reviews of themselves/ their audience (and by extension, me as part of that audience). Thankfully, from yesterday Oompah Brass said it was a “great show” (it was), and Helen Arney called us “SUCH a lovely geek-tastic audience” (aww 🙂 ). Today, MJ was “disappointed to find we have now sold A ticket for today’s show” (they got 14 in the end, and were pleased), Steve Pretty called us a “very nice audience“, and Charlie Talbot said “small but great audience“. Go us!