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Includes details of BOB SLAYER’s secret show – “BRING YOUR OWN BOOZE”

Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality Nomination & Cunning Stunt Winner

I got nominated again for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality – last year was for anarchy – this year is for taking Comedy into uncharted OTT areas… I wont win cos Doctor Brown will (Update: He didn’t Johnny Sorrow was a worthy winner)…

But Kunt and the Gang will win the Cunning Stunt Award for his cocks and I will take that as mine cos I did all the hard work before he fired me… (Update: Kunt won it but they also gave me a Cunning Stunt of my own for convincing them that Kunt had fired me… but then he really did fire me! Although I was never hired by him? Yes, I have completely lost track of what is going on as well!)

Kunt has sacked me

Dear Bob
Sorry to have to tell you by email but I don’t want you doing anything else on the cock sticker campaign. As much as I appreciate the other comedians turning out for the photocalls that you organised, I didn’t want to be in the photos and you convinced me against my better judgement that it would be a good idea. I’ve seen the resulting photos and I look more awkward than Jade Goody’s mum on a juggling course. Also I’m getting grief off my bird after you made me put that sticker on Kate Copstick’s jumper and some cunt took that photo which is now doing the rounds that looks like I’m titting her up.

I know you were doing what you thought best but the reason I don’t do any press releases is because I know who my audience is and they find us naturally through the internet or word of mouth. They are proper people like bricklayers, carpet fitters, shop workers, central heating engineers, students and drug dealers. Since you took it upon yourself to ‘help’ with my cock sticker campaign, coverage in po-faced luvvie mags like The Stage has meant the shows have been increasingly full of pompous, middle class, chin-stroking ponces. For fuck’s sake, the poxy Culture Show have even been in! In the last seven days since you helped ‘mastermind’ the cock campaign I have had more roll-necked twats in cuntish berets sat there with a glass of red wine and laughing ironically than in the previous seven years of gigs. Fuck knows how this has happened because I’d hardly call your act highbrow, I was there the night that bird stuck her finger up your arsehole and pulled it out leaving a rubber glove hanging out your brown eye.

I will buy you a beer when I see you to say thanks for helping us get nominated for the cunning stunt award. But I don’t want you doing anything else. At this rate it’s only a matter of time before Michael fucking MacIntyre turns up covered in cock stickers shouting ‘Where’s the party?’.

Cheers
Kunt

P.S. I seriously think you are liable for Daniel Sloss’s agent losing her sense of humour and invoicing us for 900 quid. I told you in confidence that I overheard someone saying that he didn’t have pubes yet, there was no need to go and blog it.

Scotsman Review – Kate Costick

Almost guaranteed to give you a memorable disaster to add to your Fringe memorabilia, Bob Slayer is the ultimate Off-Off-Fringe performer. He appears only to have the vaguest notion what is going on, is distracted by absolutely everything and rarely gets through an entire show. What he does do with impressive dedication and efficiency is drink.

We, the audience, are encouraged to buy him drinks and, such is the immense likeability of the man that we do. He is loveably genial and irresistibly friendly. The actual structure of his Marmite Gameshow is almost imperceptible within the audience banter, the rambling anecdotes of his time in the music business and his chats with the venue’s technicians and (more often) bar staff. But never let it be said Slayer is not dedicated to entertaining you, his audience.

When the Gameshow finally gets going it seems mainly to consist of members of the audience hurling (real) darts at Slayer in an attempt to score points. Crazy, shambolic but great fun, shows like this are, for me, a vital part of the Fringe experience. Go on, buy the man a Jaegermeister and have a giggle.

In Defence of Kunt and The Gang – The Full Cockgate Story

This is Kunt and the Gang’s third Fringe. For the last two years he performed at the relatively small meadow bar, building a word of mouth following and packing it out each night. This year I persuaded him to step up to the 150+ capacity Hive where we also have Phil Kay doing a free show, plus Frank Sanazi, John Robinson, my own Marmite Gameshow etc. Kunt is having no problems filling the room every night, people are loving the show and he is doing a very healthy trade in merchandise and cash in his bucket.

This year Mr Kunt had the idea of using cock shaped stickers as flyers for his show which he has been handing out to fans. These have since been appearing on other show posters all over Edinburgh and landed Kunt in a little hot water. As the person who booked hi this year I feel more than a little responsible for this (as well as proud of his success at the fringe).

Read Kunt’s appology here:

http://www.bobslayer.com/2011/08/16/never-mind-the-bollocks-sorry-about-the-cocks/

I have spoken to lots of comedians about the cock stickers and opinion is divided into two camps:
= “Its very funny…” – this has come from established Comedians such as Stewart Lee (who yesterday came to see Kunt for the second night in a row and laughed like a drain throughout) and Dave Gorman as well as newer comics and acts on the free shows who are perhaps also impressed what impact Kunt has made with just £50 worth of stickers.

= “It’s not very funny” – this has mostly come from comics on paid shows who are still establishing themselves and I think that the unnecessary commercial pressure that the fringe industry puts on the is causing them to take the cocks a little too seriously. Their comments have usually included the observation that they have spent £3000+ on the posters that were defaced. Maybe the relevant point is that they shouldn’t have spent so much on posters that don’t do a great deal to sell tickets and are often more to benefit the profile of the promoter.

The question is has there been any actual negative effect due to the appearane of cocks on posters? Serial prankster Lewis Schaffer was asked what he thought about it all and he said: “Well I was thinking of going to see Russell Kane’s show but when I saw his poster I was worried that he might be a cock sucker and so have decided to give it a miss.” However Kane himself was unconcerned and said: “I actually found it fucking funny! Keep printing cocks and saying it too. It’s proper funny.”

This all reminds me of a story Simon Donald used to tell in his show about the early days of Viz: IPC Media showed an interest in publishing the magazine but told them that categorically “Farts were not funny”. Viz quite rightly ignored IPC and the magazine went on to become the third best selling mag in the UK with Johnny Fartpants as one of their most loved creations. As soon as you start policing what is and isn’t funny then you have lost the point of comedy.

In another anecdote an agent at Avalon asked comedian Ian Fox what was the funniest thing he had seen at the Fringe Ian replied Kunt & The Gang. The Avalon agent was intreagued and wanted to know more but after Ian had described Kunts show the agent said: “Oh I don’t think we could do anything with that.” to which Ian replied well that wasn’t your question! I would go further and say that if one of the largest comedy agents cannot do anything with the funniest act on the fringe then it is the agent and perhaps the industry that needs to change and not the act.

The Awards judges are coning to see Kunt this week so maybe the industry is going to change? All I would like to say to them is that he is a maverick, don’t censor him…

Alternative Fringe
Laughing Horse @ The Hive (313), Niddry Street
6:15pm – Frank Sanazi – the beautifuclly wrong songbird
7:15pm – Bob Slayer – “Good natured bad behaviour from a very funny man…” Copstick, The Scotsman
8:15pm – Phil Kay – multi award winning Scotsman and one of the most experienced and unpredictably hilarious performers on the fringe
9:15pm – Kunt and The Gang – a cult superstar, do not miss and also do not be late – it will be packed!
Also throughout the day at the Hive: Devvo, Desiree Burch (SMUT), Jody Kamali, John Robertson, Tony Bournemouth (aka Jimbo), Ivan Steward, O’Farahan & Keith, Napi Lewis, Spring Day, Eric Hutton & Ben Elwood, Malcolm Hardee Comedy Debates

Never Mind The Bollocks SORRY ABOUT THE COCKS

Here follows an apology from Kunt:

Kunt and the Gang would like to apologise to anyone who is upset about the ‘crudely drawn cock’ stickers that have been appearing all over posters in Edinburgh. When we had 5000 of the cock stickers printed in the run up to the Fringe Festival we just thought it would be a light-hearted alternative to flyers. The plan was to give them to our audience each night so they could go out and vote with their cocks by sticking them in amusing places on posters. It was intended to be one big jolly jape that everyone laughed along with. This I now know was a badly misjudged joke that horribly backfired.

Unfortunately it was brought to our attention that some comedians were extremely angry at seeing their posters adorned with an effigy of a male member. This culminated in myself being physically threatened by one irate comic who failed to see the funny side of his poster being decorated by a member of the public with a crudely drawn image of a man’s winky.

Further to this, after only four nights of the audience being handed stickers at the end of my show, I received a warning from the Fringe Police and was told that Underbelly had threatened action should any more of my stickers be handed out. I suspect the cock that broke the camel’s back was the penis that ended up in Christine Hamilton’s wine glass on their flagship poster on Bristo Square. The same night I received a visit at my venue from Edinburgh Council Environmental
Dept. who told us that they had spent the day pulling off over a hundred cocks. They showed us examples of cocks they had found on posters, including the one of Russell Kane with his mouth open, the one of Richard Herring lying on a bed and the one of the Spank Comedy Club with that bird bending over. I gave them my assurance to that no more cock stickers would be given out.

I would like to take this opportunity to say my cocks were not meant maliciously or designed to annoy anyone and I sincerely apologise if one of my cocks got up anyone’s nose. Admittedly I didn’t think it through properly. I mistakenly thought everyone would share my enthusiasm for seeing Edinburgh covered in crudely drawn cocks for a month. In retrospect I realise I was like America selling Weapons of Mass Destruction to the Middle East without a thought for who my cock shaped missiles would be affecting. Furthermore I would also like to apologise to any of the performers who have had a cock removed and are now left where the sticker once was or a ‘ghost cock’. I’m sorry if my cock cheesed ayone off.

Kunt (Kunt and the Gang)

Alternative Fringe
Laughing Horse @ The Hive (313), Niddry Street
6:15pm – Frank Sanazi – the beautifuclly wrong songbird
7:15pm – Bob Slayer – “Good natured bad behaviour from a very funny man…” Copstick, The Scotsman
8:15pm – Phil Kay – multi award winning Scotsman and one of the most experienced and unpredictably hilarious performers on the fringe
9:15pm – Kunt and The Gang – a cult superstar, do not miss and also do not be late – it will be packed!
Also throughout the day at the Hive: Devvo, Desiree Burch (SMUT), Jody Kamali, John Robertson, Tony Bournemouth (aka Jimbo), Ivan Steward, O’Farahan & Keith, Napi Lewis, Spring Day, Eric Hutton & Ben Elwood, Malcolm Hardee Comedy Debates

Bizarre Heroes

Bizarre did a feature on Heroes of Alternative Comedy

Bob Slayer’s Rock & Roll Circus – JASON ROUSE – Dec Tour

DECEMBER _ UK Tour
01 Wed – Reading @ Highlight Comedy Club
02 Thu – Clapham @ Highlight Comedy Club
03 Fri – Cheltenham @ The Night Owl *
05 Sun – Watford @ Highlight Comedy Club
06 Mon – Leeds @ Highlight Comedy Club
07 Tue – Edinburgh @ Highlight Comedy Club
08 Wed – Leicester @ Highlight Comedy Club
09 Thu – Luton Uni @ Student Union *
10 Fri – Nottingham @ Bunkers Hill *
11 Sat – Earache Records Xmas Party @ Doghouse Studios, Nottingham *
12 Sun – Chatham @ Tap N’Tin *

MORE INFO:-
http://www.bobslayer.com/rar/

Malcolm Hardee Awards Show – Nov 4th

Dates for your diaries

THURS 4th NOV
Malcolm Hardee Awards Show
@ the Highlight Comedy Club in Camden Lock,
Bob Slayer will present a London show featuring 2010 Award winners/nominees. On the bill will be:
ARTHUR SMITH – The legendary comedian, playwright, TV panellist and performer of international stature.
ROBERT WHITE – “A jaw-dropping riot… mix of lewd innuendo, cheesy jokes, music hall songs played on a knackered keyboard and sound-effects games… side-splitting.” (The List)
DR BROWN – A visual and surreal Dadaist, absurdist act of downright uncomfortable weirdness that goes strange places, turns left then goes even stranger.
LEWIS SCHAFFER – Chortle called this unpredictable American “angry and downright offensive”.The Scotsman said “his jokes might have another comic arrested”.
BOB SLAYER (MC) – “Anarchic” is an understatement for the former jockey and unemployed alcoholic turned tour manager, B-movie film star and rock & roll comedian.
http://www.thehighlight.co.uk/home/events/2/04-11-2010