Funny Women

Comedians Nicola Mantalios (centre) and Susan Warlock (right) with me at BBC Studios in Newcastle for an interview about the importance of getting more older women into comedy

January can be a really dull month, so I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having a great laugh at the stand-up comedy writing course every Monday.

I find the more you try and write something funny it disappears, especially once you’ve picked it over. This course, run by Nicola Mantalios, is very systematic about how to make jokes work. And the approach does make everything sound more right. I’ve a long way to go but can see already that my writing is hitting better funny notes!

My draft set so far includes nearly dying, weird stuff and health issues. Quite the mix up. Now I just have to ensure it is delivered in a way that make people at least smile. No pressure then.

I wanted to write jokes about older women being invisible but I’m finding it hard to make it funny.

Last week I went to the Tipsy Toad in Heaton, Newcastle and saw some great comedians. The headliner was Susan Warlock, a graduate from one of Nicola’s courses 18 months ago. She uses her age (67) as part of her material and was very inventive, relatable and funny. I took notes!

There are four of us from the course doing our first gig at the Cumberland Arms in February. I’ll let you know what happened in the next newsletter.

No news on Halloween Lanterns yet but I’m entering some competitions with it in the hope that might lead to something interesting. Fingers crossed.

Many moons ago I saw the Rocky Horror Show film when it came out and was stunned by its audacity, hilarious antics and fantastic songs. I was lucky enough to see the new stage show for Northern Arts Review at the Sunderland Empire a couple of weeks ago and it was just as great.  Some of the audience dressing up added to the fun. There were even Brad and Janet lookalikes who had done a good job.

With the weather being so rubbish I’ve watched quite a bit of TV. The Traitors was very intriguing and had me hooked. I was surprised it worked so well after the hit Celebrity version, but it was excellent.

I’ve been reading A Year of Living Danishly about a couple relocating to Denmark for a year. Its fascinating and my current morning, stop-doomscrolling-the-news, read. There seems to be a huge amount of care given to all of society, particularly those who are in difficult times. The happiness statistics are through the roof compared to the UK, not a shock, and it seems as if this plays a big part.

February is Bay Tales month and I’m volunteering again for this annual crime writing festival, which I love. My fear to reading ratio is terrible as I’m true scaredy cat.  I don’t read much crime, but this event is still fascinating. One of the best sessions was by Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist. For someone who hates gore it blew my mind and I read his first book in 24 hours.

Thanks very much for reading this. Hope your February goes well and the sun shines for us all.