Edinburgh 2012 summary

I got two reviews. One was one star. One was four stars. That pretty much sums up the audience responses. Average star rating was therefore 2.5, half a star down on last year, but I got 2 more stars in total. Yippee! I only need a two star review and a five star one and I’ve got the whole set (I suspect the two might come easier than the five). Also, not a single person this year threatened to beat me up shouting “it’s not fucking funny, like your fucking act”. Not a single one! I am progressing. No-one said “I find this deeply offensive”, and no-one said “How long have you been doing this?”. There is a part of me that thinks that means I’m actually regressing in some sense. “When you’re a misanthrope, the praise of others is effectively scorn” – Raph Shirley, in his critically ignored 2011 Edinburgh show.

What I did have, was a lot of walkouts. I had about five shows go seriously southward, frequently involving mass walkouts. I don’t mind a single mass walkout, but little dribs and drabs throughout the act is depressing. But listen yeah, when you are a great artist like me, people will sometimes be confused. They know not what they do. “Let me tell you about another so-called ‘wicked’ guy. He had long hair and some wild ideas and he didn’t always do what other people thought was right. And that man’s name was… I forgot… but the point is… I forgot… Marge, you know who I’m talking about. He used to drive that blue car.” – Homer Simpson.

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Figure 1. Self portrait at end of festival (a copy of a Matthew McConville painting).

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A sample of quotes:

“Raph Shirley is not funny… [He is] an unpleasant, smug, petty-minded, delusional geek who thinks he can make it as a stand-up.” – Tristram Fane Saunders, absurdly named reviewer for the absurdly titled BroadwayBaby.com.

“Tristram Fane Saunders is a mad, pathetic, evil, and wormlike weasel, who may well hit kittens in their adorable little faces, and doesn’t understand proper use of conjunctions in lists… Petty!? Would a petty man write a rigorous refutation of an accusation of pettiness?! Huh?!?! Would they Tristram, you dreadful man?” – Raph Shirley, cool dude.

‘ “Raph Shirley is… funny” – Tristram Fane Saunders, BroadwayBaby.com.’ – Future press release for Raph Shirley.

No, but seriously, I wish him well.

“This has the potential to be fantastic alternative character comedy… a lot of promise, and it’s certainly original.” – Liam McKenna, FringeGuru.com.

“Liam McKenna is the finest reviewer the world has ever known.” – Raph Shirley.

“[laughs] That isn’t even minimum wage! That’s less than a tramp gets.” – Shop worker on hearing how much money I took that day.

“Hi, we saw you last year and came back. You were the best thing we saw on the Free Fringe.” – nice person after show.

When thinking about reviews and reviewers never forget the following fact: the film Love Actually was generally positively reviewed.

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I had one catastrophe of a show (last year, I had about five), when I asked two people to leave because they were “annoying me”. No, but seriously, they were really annoying me though. The atmosphere in the room instantly fell to the floor and I never got them back. I’ve made a graph:

Figure 2. Vibe verses time during final show when I asked some people to leave.

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Love to all my fellow humans (-1),

Non-cynical non-ironic PS:

Thank you to Peter Buckley Hill and everyone else at PBH’s Free Fringe 2012. Thanks also to the extremely friendly and helpful staff at The Globe Bar.

Edinburgh Preview at 9.30pm on 22 July @ The Hen and Chickens

Hello,

Please come to my Edinburgh Preview at 9.30pm on Sunday 22 July at the Hen and Chickens Theatre Bar, Islington. I’d like it if you did.

Buy tickets here. Or pay on the night to save £0.75 you cheap skate.

If you’re in to Facebook events:

https://www.facebook.com/events/499420723407199/

Many thanks,

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

Bonus material - Philosophical Investigations Results Section in mind boggling high definition audio

As part of a scheme to promote my forthcoming Edinburgh show, I am releasing an audio recording of last year’s show, Philosophical Investigations. I’m releasing it in six parts. This week, it is the results section:

[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/PhilosophicalInvestigations/Section3.mp3]

Or download it for your mp3 player here.

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

Computer Programmer Extraordinaire

Dear potential friend/enemy,

I’m taking a brand new show to the Edinburgh festival again.

Do come!

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

Bonus material - Philosophical Investigations Introduction in heart breaking high definition audio

As part of a scheme to promote my forthcoming Edinburgh show, I am releasing an audio recording of last year’s show, Philosophical Investigations. I’m releasing it in six parts. This week, it is the introduction:

[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/PhilosophicalInvestigations/Section1.mp3]

Or download it for your mp3 player here.

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

A recount of a tough crowd

In the land of small and unappreciative audiences; Raph Shirley’s 2011 début Edinburgh solo show.

I think the worst show at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival was the one I did to a solitary ninety year old man. He’d got lost on his way to the military tattoo. Old people often can’t see very well, and he found himself in/being my audience. They (the elderly) usually navigate in groups. In that respect, they are like penguins, and they huddle together for warmth. If an old person gets separated from the group they will last a matter of minutes. They also enjoy a diet rich in oily fish, but they are poor swimmers.

Anyway, I finished the show and I was swinging a camcorder round on a stick, in an attempt to recreate the sense of excitement at Live at the Apollo (I was hoping to use the footage for my show reel). The man had been politely sitting there for forty five minutes looking terrified. I said ‘well, that’s the end. What did you think? You can leave some money if you think that’s appropriate’. I didn’t scam him. I didn’t say that he needs to replace his roof insulation and it will cost £1500.

Anyway, a bit of the fear went away from his face and he said ‘I fought the Germans in World War II, but nothing could have prepared me for the horror that I just experienced’. I said ‘I’m sorry to hear that’, and I started to leave the stage, and… I tripped up, and fell face first into some nachos, and I looked at the man with a salsary face and said ‘I’m really sorry’, and then my trousers fell down and I farted comically and a little bit of poo poo fell into-the-ankled-pants/onto-the-floor and I could taste a little bit of the sour-cream/salsa/guacamole/beer miscellany and… and… a solitary tortilla chip dropped off the end of my nose, and one corner hit the tip of my penis, and it seemed to spin in slow motion like that man from the Titanic film, and it stuck upright into the little poo poo I was talking about earlier, like a sort of parody of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ our lord and saviour.

Anyway, I was actually quite embarrassed at this point, so I tried to leave the stage, but I slipped on the poo (another bit) and I fell over in such a way that the aforementioned tortilla chip stuck up my rectum. The man, who actually had a purple heart, stood up and said ‘I will never forgive your generation for your decadence’, and he fell off his chair dead, and then my parents, who had come to see my show but had been distracted on their way to the theatre by the Twilight Saga came in and saw the whole scene. I said ‘It’s not what it looks like… Ah, who am I kidding it’s exactly what it looks like’, and then my bum made this noise:
[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/fartNoise.mp3]

Anyway, there’s no need to go into unnecessary detail, but I think that was probably one of my worst shows.

There was one show that was worse than that maybe, but… I dunno, do you wanna? Well, there was this one time where there was no-one there except the barman and I thought – well I’ll do it anyway, so I started to do the show, and then the ceiling started to come down on me and the barman was, like, ‘ah shit’. That was inconvenient, but I carried on, and then the cieling was, like, pressing on our heads, and I said to the barman “maybe I should stop”, and he’s like “no, no it’s cool, its cool”, so I kept going and then the barman’s head actually popped, and I was like “fuck… fuck it… fuck… I’m going to be blamed”, but I thought… I’ll keep going, and I’m a third of the way through, and the cieling is still crushing my head, and then my brother starts growing out of the barman’s neck except he hasn’t got any skin like Robbie Williams in that video, and his mouth is a speaker just saying all this really offensive stuff. It’s like he doesn’t understand our ways but he’s just heard what we find offensive and is saying it all and it’s, like, all the standard racist, and pornographic, and violent, and misogynist, and all that but there is also this stuff in there that seems to get to the real heart of what makes you a pathetic animal, and what means you are not a dignified human being but a sort of rat, and all your insecurities and weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and it is, like, the sort of speech where after you’ve heard it you’ll never be able to smile convincingly again. It completely undermines you.

Anyway, I look at my watch and notice that time has completely stopped. It has slowed down to nothing at all, but this kind of intense pain and shame is swelling inside, and every centimetre of my body is in agonising pain, and… the thing is, when time stops space also dilates… I don’t really understand it, is something to do with Einstein or the atomic bomb or something, but all your skin and anywhere with nerve endings is getting elongated so that my capacity for pain and suffering is increasing. At this point I’m thinking – maybe I will stop the show because this is fucking inconvenient, but I’m not really in control of my actions and I thought – It can’t get much worse than this, but I start to grow new limbs ‘cos during this I was thinking “well at least my body is finite so the pain can only be on my ten digits for instance I could have twenty digits with all this pain. But as I had thought it I did have twenty digits and actually then my thoughts led to more and more body parts until I’m actually infinitely big, and a little side point, I thought back to that Doctor Pepper advert that’s like ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’, and I realised the answer of course is ‘infinite suffering’. Now I say “right, that’s it – the show is cancelled. I’m not doing it any more”, but as I mentioned – I no longer have any control and this is where it really gets rather annoying, and this is what makes this probably the worst show I did, I then start to destroy everything that I love. The worst thing about it is that all the time Rock DJ by the aforementioned Robbie Williams is playing on the stereo. That’s when I thought – maybe my show shouldn’t be listed in the comedy section.

Anyway, it turns out that my mates had spiked my drink before the show with LSD. They had had some careless talk about doing it but hadn’t really been serious. One of my mates, SexyPete99, had thought they were being serious and came to Edinburgh to do it. When you think about it, it takes six hours and two changes to get from Hemel Hempstead to Edinburgh and he did that whole trip alone. It doesn’t bare thinking about.

Love to all earthly souls,

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

Bonus material - Philosophical Investigations Abstract in mind blowing high definition audio

As part of a scheme to promote my forthcoming Edinburgh show, I am releasing an audio recording of last year’s show, Philosophical Investigations. I’m releasing it in six parts starting with the abstract:

[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/PhilosophicalInvestigations/Section0.mp3]

Or download it for your mp3 player here.

*************************** BONUS MATERIAL ***************************

Edinburgh DVD on sale now

My 2011 Edinburgh show, Philosophical Investigations, is now available on DVD for the incredible price of 10 pounds. I have made DVD cases out of left over flyers and then burnt a PDF of the script on to an Intenso 4.70 Gb DVD-R disc using the Sonic RecordNow! software on my Toshiba Satellite Pro.

I am releasing a limited run of 1000. This is your chance to own a piece of performance art history. I have also thrown in a pirate mp3 of Jessie J’s absurd Price Tag song.

My fans are the most important thing to me. P&P £2.50.

Good night,

Edinburgh 2011 summary

The 2011 smash flop, Philosophical Investigations, has today come to an end.


Figure 1. Conventional cameras can not capture the sublime performance of Raph Shirley.

The show of which The Telegraph said nothing at all, the show nominated for under 1 awards, the five star masterpiece (five one star reviews from audience comment website edfringe.com) has finished with a faintly audible plop.


Figure 2. Raph Shirley sensitively discussing the role of Islam in the West.

Highlights

  • For me the highlight has to be an extremely angry man yelling ‘call me soft of mind again and I’ll knock your fucking head off’. If that’s not the reaction every comedian wants I don’t know what is.
  • Or perhaps the show performed to three silent octogenarians?
  • What of the various people who found it ‘deeply offensive’? Including the American lady who kindly inquired ‘Have you been doing this for long?’.

Whatever your favourite moment is, remember:

‘Any logically coherent doctrine will always be painful to current prejudices’ – Bertrand Russell.

Edinburgh 2012 is in the making and promises to be even more confusing to audiences everywhere.

Be ready,

Warning – everything below this point is written in earnest. The lack of irony and cynicism may make you want to vomit. Please proceed with caution.

Thank you very much to Peter Buckley-Hill, everyone involved with organising PBH’s Free Fringe 2011, and the kind staff at Rush Bar who helped me throughout the festival.

Cheers,

Raph Shirley, Edinburgh, August 2011.

Edinburgh preview on 13th July 2011

Hello good people,

I am doing a preview of my Edinburgh show, Philosophical Investigations, at The Invisible Dot in Camden, London.

  • 13 July 2011
  • 8pm
  • The show is free of cost

You can email info@theinvisibledot.com to reserve a seat.

Your humble jester,

Venue details: www.theinvisibledot.com

Show details: www.raphshirley.com/shows/2011/philosophical-investigations/

The campaign

After months of art directors and copywriters, secretaries and assistants, marketing executives and what have you (all of whom played by me) the advertisng campaign is finally here. In the end we decided to skip the TV spots and billboards and go with just flyers and word of mouth in the end.

Cheers,

Philosophical Investigations

A MESSAGE FROM RAPH


Dear friends and/or enemies etc,

There is a NEWS FLASH. I am taking a show to Edinburgh. I, as in raphshirley.com live, a.k.a. Raph Shirley.

It is called Philosophical Investigations and will be on at Rush bar every day at 3pm, 6-27 August inclusive. Come.

There is also a brand new/completely-professional-looking section of The Website dedicated to it. See it.

Do take care,