(no subject)

So I was listening to The Burkiss Way and realised that Renwick and Marshall must have written for Not The Nine O'Clock News, because there was the "I want to buy a gramophone" sketch!... except on TV, I don't remember it mutating through a game-show and ending with Genghis Khan chopping somebody's head off. (I think early Renwick and Marshall are the most overtly Python-influenced writers I've come across- it works well in Burkiss Way where it's mostly fun stuff in playing with the format and having sketches run into each other; in Alexei Sayle's Stuff you can see why writers might steer clear of Pythonesque themes, because it feels really derivative. And Angus Deayton isn't as good at being John Cleese as John Cleese is.)

Anyway! Went to see Mark Watson last night, and it was marvellous fun. He was sitting at the front with a laptop and a Word doc open on a screen as people came in, and having strange typed conversations with the audience; also, he did a bit about people needing to be less self-conscious and do more fun things, like chasing people... so when it turned out there was an 11-year-old in, he chased him around the audience. It was v. amusing. And his prepared stuff was good as well.