Hey there, hope you’re all doing well. I’m good, although like all disabled people in the UK I feel great unease over the government’s proposed changes to our benefits. My PIP review still hasn’t been dealt with after 9 months as it is. I’m not going to rant about it here though – I’ve posted a brief thread and shared several other posts on my Twitter/X page if you want a wider sense of people’s reactions. But please do read the proposals and respond to the consultation if you can (by 22nd July), as it’s vitally important to have our voices heard at this early stage. Same goes for the separate consultation about fit notes (until 8th July) too.
But anyway, on to much nicer things, and there’s plenty that I’ve enjoyed during this past month, including a couple of exhibitions, a West End musical, a theatre workshop, stand-up gigs and other comedy shows. One of the exhibitions was a press invite for my journalist friend Emily, and I’m due to be paid for the workshop I took part in, but nothing is sponsored to be featured here and all opinions are my own as usual.
So let’s crack on with this month’s post and video, and I hope you enjoy!
Welcome to my first Favourites post and video for this year! As I had a very busy Christmas that lasted until mid-January, it made sense to combine the latter half of that month with February for this roundup.
Recent weeks have been quite relaxed compared to the festive period, as hoped and expected, but there’s still quite a variety of bits and pieces to mention. These include an audio described gallery tour, a free meal, a special scenic view of the city, an important new audio play, things I’ve been watching that have been recommended by friends, and other entertainment I’ve enjoyed. Some of these items are PR-related, as indicated when appropriate, but all opinions are my own regardless. So I hope you enjoy!
Updated since original publication to include all his specials up to 2025.
Wonky-eyed and from the Westcountry like me, Russell Howard is one of my favourite comedians, and not just for those reasons. I like his upbeat energy, positivity and common sense views, and he has a great variety of material in his routines, including crazy anecdotes about himself and his family, amusing observations about the weird and wonderful things he’s seen, and his reactions to people and events in the news.
I therefore took the opportunity to see him live at the London Palladium recently, and he was brilliant, unsurprisingly. So I thought I’d also do quick reviews of his DVDs and online specials, just like I’ve done for some other comedians whose shows I’ve attended, as it’s always fun to watch them again. None of this is sponsored or gifted, and be aware that there is a bit of strong language and adult humour in some of the clips I’ve embedded. And with that, I hope you enjoy!
Hello again, and welcome to my next monthly roundup. Now that I’ve settled into my new job (for which I’ve had a nice gift and my hours have just increased from 22 to 25 per week), things are getting back to normal again.
So there are no major announcements about my life this time. And I haven’t been to any theatre shows or exhibitions this month, as I wasn’t able to make it to the Super Power Panto in the end. But I have used the first salary payment from my new job to book a few shows, in addition to a couple of things I already had in the diary, so the cultural side of things will pick up very soon.
All of which means this was a relatively relaxed month, but I can still mention some bits and pieces I did while out and about, and some entertainment that I watched at home. So I hope you enjoy my latest post and video update!
Updated since original publication to include all of his specials up to January 2026.
Jimmy Carr is a stand-up comedian who I’ve been a fan of for several years, and at the time of writing he’s the only comic I’ve got around to seeing live twice, albeit with far too long a gap between the two shows. The first time was at The Princess Theatre, Torquay in July 2012, where I actually got to meet him, and then much more recently I saw him at the New Theatre, Oxford in November 2022. I’ll make sure it’s not another 10 years before I see him again!
His humour is often very rude of course, including subjects that are taboo or controversial, so he’s not to everyone’s taste, and that’s perfectly fine and understandable. Nobody has to watch him, and if you’re not a fan of his then don’t read this post.
But I personally feel comfortable with his style of humour. He’s said himself that he’s an equal opportunities offender, in that anybody and everybody is a target for his humour, and thus nobody is singled out. And, like all the other people who choose to attend his gigs or buy his DVDs, I know exactly what I’m getting into. I know that he’s just telling jokes and not expressing his actual opinions, and his jokes don’t reflect my personal views either. I also know that he’s a nice guy from meeting him in person, and I know that he’s clever and insightful about jokes and comedy from both his stage act and his interviews.
So, following the pattern I’ve adopted with other comics whose shows I’ve attended in recent months, I thought I would review all of his stand-up shows that he’s released on DVD (a few of which are also on his Youtube channel alongside lots of clips), and more recent gigs that were published on Netflix & Youtube. Each show includes lots of great jokes and banter with the audience, and sometimes other elements for a little bit of variety. And his DVDs contain a lot of extra features, so he’s been quite generous with those too, even going to the effort of narrating the menus and adding comedy subtitles on the earlier releases.
So here’s my little run through of his various specials, none of which are sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy!
Following on from my previous post about Derren Brown’s various TV series, this time I’m revisiting his TV specials, including his televised stage shows. I own 4 specials and 5 stage shows on DVD, but the rest haven’t been released on disc. Most of these shows are on All4 as well though, and some are on Derren’s Youtube channel (in full along with many shorter clips), as he generously posted a lot of shows online during the Covid pandemic. So I’ve been able to rewatch all of them recently in one way or another.
Derren’s specials are all one-off shows (or occasionally two-parters) focused on a very specific subject, event or person. Nearly all of them were an hour long when originally broadcast (so around 45-50 minutes without adverts), with a few exceptions that lasted 90 minutes (so around 70 minutes without commercials). They’re always thought-provoking, and a few of the darker ones resulted in complaints (and thus extra publicity) from people who didn’t understand what he was doing or trying to achieve. But I find them all fascinating and fun to watch in any case. Likewise his stage shows are all amazing to watch, and I’ve grouped them together in one section at the end as I don’t need to go into heavy detail about them.
As mentioned before, none of this is sponsored, I’m just writing about them as a fan. And there are a few spoilers in here if you haven’t seen the shows before, but then it’s pretty common knowledge that Derren’s experiments pretty much always succeed as intended. The thrill is from seeing how he does it and the impact it has on those involved. So I hope you enjoy my descriptions and reviews.
Hello again, and welcome to my roundup for another busy month. Apart from having nice walks to enjoy the sunshine as usual, I’ve also been to a few theatre shows, watched the Jubilee celebrations at home, and enjoyed various other programmes on TV and online.
However, they’re not the only things keeping me occupied. I recently revealed that I’m being made redundant, after 17 years in a role that was created specifically to harness my IT skills in a local authority print unit. My entire department is being closed, with all the work being outsourced, and therefore I’m on the lookout for a new challenge. I don’t have to rush into anything, as I’m in a fortunate position where I can take my time to find what feels right for me, so I feel quite calm about it all so far. And it might even be that my mother and I move to another part of London, as that’s something else we’re tempted by and are considering given the circumstances, although that’s by no means definite at this point.
But if you have any advice for job hunting or moving, or know of any paid work or volunteering or nice properties that might interest me, please do feel free to get in touch by social media or email. Career opportunities can be related to my current line of work (variable data and print production) or in other areas I enjoy (IT, accessibility, assistive technology, sight loss, disability, museums, theatres, research projects, blogging, Youtube, etc). There’s lots of options to consider, and I will of course keep you posted of any developments!
But anyway, here I’m going to focus on the happier side of recent events, and there’s plenty to get through. So let’s get straight to it, and I hope you enjoy!
From high in the sky to deep underground, including my first time riding 2 different modes of transport and my first London museum visit in ages, plus stand-up comedy, TV shows and music, there’s been a lot going on this month. London really is feeling alive and back to normal again, which is wonderful. So I’ve got a lot to get through here as usual, none of which is sponsored or gifted, and I hope you enjoy this latest roundup!
Updated since original publication to include all of his specials up to 2025.
Comedian, actor and writer Ricky Gervais has released several stand-up specials on DVD and Netflix over the years. He naturally isn’t to everyone’s taste, and he is understandably seen as controversial or offensive by some. His shows are 18-rated with good reason, because his humour is often very rude and he sometimes covers very dark topics. So it’s fine if some people feel offended by him, that’s their choice to hold such an opinion, and they’re under no obligation to watch him. Comedy is very subjective and open to interpretation, and we’re all different. I’m not going to say whether people should enjoy his comedy or not, and I wouldn’t expect other people to tell me either.
All I can say is that I like his stand-up comedy personally, and I’ve never felt offended by anything in his shows. For me, it always comes down to context, which often gets removed when people report on certain routines or share carefully edited clips on social media. As Ricky has sometimes gone out of his way to explain quite clearly, joking about a particular subject isn’t a representation of a comedian’s views about that subject, nor is laughing about it a reflection on the audience’s views. I don’t agree with the sentiments expressed in every joke he makes, and I don’t find every single joke funny, yet I still enjoy his act. Because that’s what it is – an act, not a factual lecture. Every stand-up comedian portrays a character on stage, it’s escapism. Ricky’s stage persona is not the real Ricky.
In any case, the reason I like him isn’t because of the type of material he does – after all, there are various ‘edgy’ comedians who I dislike, and plenty of far tamer comedians who I love. I just like him because I find him funny. And his routines have no influence on my own personal beliefs, opinions and behaviours, because I know where to draw the lines. I also know that, in reality, he’s a big supporter of rights and equality, including animal welfare, gay marriage, mental health issues, etc. So that’s my interpretation and opinion of his work.
So with all that said, let’s get on to the shows themselves. Each of his stand-up specials, lasting around 70-80 minutes, is loosely based on a particular theme, although he does go off on plenty of tangents as well. And there are naturally some topics that come up repeatedly, including his true views on religion (which I do agree with to a fair extent as I’m an atheist like him), his privileged position, his own health and getting older, fat people (i.e. those who could improve through healthier living but choose not to), charity work, animals, political correctness, and his radio producer friend Karl Pilkington (who has a uniquely strange perspective on the world). But he does talk about other things too. And even when topics are revisited, there are usually new jokes and observations, so it doesn’t feel too repetitive. At most he might do an occasional callback to something he said in a previous show, to set the scene for a new joke he’s about to make.
So, for me, there’s a good variety of funny material in each of his gigs, and there’s a nice collection of extras on his DVDs as well. Hence I thought I would do a review of all his shows, and I hope you enjoy reading about them.
It’s been a long time but, now that things have finally opened up again, I’m happy to say I’ve just had my first little holiday in over 2 years. While I’ll always be obsessed with exploring London itself, I’m also keen to poke around places further afield a bit more, as it’s so easy to hop on fast trains out of the city, to practically any part of the UK, unlike where I used to live. I’ve settled into London very well over the past 5 years, even if I have been largely stuck indoors for the last 2 of them, so I’m looking forward to broadening my horizons.
So at the end of March I spent a week in Milton Keynes. Hardly an exotic location, I know, but still an enjoyable and worthwhile change of scenery. And it was all off my own back, meaning nothing here is sponsored or gifted.
As well as seeing an audio described theatre show, which I’ll mention in my next post, I also spent a few days checking out the most famous museums in the area, marking the first time I’ve been to such places since the pandemic began. So that’s what I’m going to tell you about here, focusing primarily on the most significant location – Bletchley Park – as what was achieved there was nothing short of extraordinary, but there are a few other things to mention as well. And I’ve also uploaded some video clips I recorded at Bletchley Park, which will give you a small sense of the atmosphere, so do check that out too.
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