Spring 2009
Well, one thing you can say about my website – I don’t exactly overdo it with updates.
This is, of course, purely out of consideration for visitors, who might find constant change upsetting in the confusion and stress of the current economic climate. The fact that I am easily distracted, and my office is about as organised as alphabet soup, may have something to do with it. As may the little dog, which appears on my screen every time I try to type anything and tells me I’m rubbish. So, Happy New Year everybody, Jolly Lent, Ecstatic Easter, Merry May Day, and have a wonderful time on any other festival which takes your fancy until the Summer Solstice, when I might manage another update.
2009 and I haven’t fallen off my perch yet. I’ve still got my own eyeballs, most of my own teeth and a surprising amount of original hair – and I’ve certainly not lost my appetite for showing-off in public. I’ll be more than happy to lower the tone of anybody’s function – wherever it may be. Distance is really no object as is evidenced by my tour of New Zealand last Autumn – and seeing as I’ve mentioned it,
NEW ZEALAND
-is utterly wonderful. I went over to do the Cardrona Festival and ended up playing about 12 gigs, from the north of North Island to the south of South Island. There’s more spectacular scenery than you could shake an Orc’s cudgel at, the roads are empty, the plates are full and the Kiwis are the friendliest bunch you could ever hope to fall out of a pub with. What’s more, they have delightfully old-fashioned values, so, for the first time in quite a few years, my act was cutting-edge!
The bugger is that it’s a very long way, but those nice people at Singapore Airlines made that problem a lot easier – and a stopover in Singapore was brilliant. They were putting up the Christmas Decorations when we came back through. Your neighbour may have done his house up like a radioactive Pound Shop but wait until you see Orchard Road!
MRS GERRISH’S CHRISTMAS STOCKING
In November and December 2007 I was acting and singing in a play called “Mrs Gerrish’s Christmas Stocking” with the brilliant Kate McNab and Ross Harvey (a.k.a. Ministry of Entertainment). It proved very popular with audiences and critics alike and we’d hoped to bring it back last year. Unfortunately, a lot of people who missed it (and a lot who wanted to see it again!) were disappointed as other projects intervened.
HOWEVER! Kate and Ross and I are very keen to do it this year and we’re actively looking for venues. The chances of it happening are good, so watch this space – and please let us know if you’ve got a suitable hall in mind.
www.ministryofentertainment.co.uk will give you details of all their other plays.
THREE PIECE SUITE
During the year I did several gigs with Helen, Ali and John and if you look in the gig list you’ll see we’ve got several more in. They’re now running regular nights at Camerton Village Hall, having developed such a following they outgrew their previous regular venue at Compton Dando!
www.campionmusic.co.uk and www.keyna.co.uk will tell you what, where and when.
FUTURE PROJECTS
Quite a few people have suggested I do a song book or a joke book. Both are real possibilities for when the phone stops ringing, the garden stops growing and the 25-hour day gets invented, though I must say I quite fancy the idea.
Another suggestion is that I should put a musical offering or moving pictures on the website. Some disgracefully over-educated friends have been known to record my shows on the night, edit them while they were stopped at the traffic lights, stick a photo on the front and deliver them gift-wrapped before I’d finished my cocoa. Now this level of cleverness seems to me to require a business relationship with Beelzebub, but a singsong on the website sounds like a bit of a wheeze. I’m going to have a word with my friend Adrian who designed and runs this site for me. He can do all that sort of stuff quicker than I can type his email address, and he can probably invent a programme to make it sound like I’m in tune. (Adrian is “The Webmaster”, which sounds pretty impressive to me and I’m told is just one degree away from “Intergalactic Warlord”).
I know I’m on quite a few other websites playing all sorts of stuff that people have uploaded. There’s even one where a disc jockey chappie called Laurent Garnier has done a dance version of one of mine. I wouldn’t fancy frolicking to it myself without some pretty comprehensive medical insurance, but my daughters, for some reason, think it’s rather cool.
There are several more pages you might like to look at.
RECORDINGS
A full list of my recorded works can be found here, with prices, methods of payment and address. Some people have missed this section and put themselves to the trouble of enquiring via the Contact Form, so have a look here first.
ABOUT FRED
This section will give you the usual collection of half-truths and cunningly re-touched old photos we laughingly call “publicity”. You’re welcome to download any thing you want. Some comperes have taken their introductions straight from this section – leaving me standing in the wings looking around for the bloke they’re describing.
GIGS
Unfortunately most of my gigs are private these days – dinners, clubs, conferences and so on – but now and then I get to play Arts Centres, Folk Clubs, Village Halls and Festivals (to which the public are admitted at their own risk). I’ll be happy to supply details by email using the Contact Form, by phone on 01761 471516, or by post to:- The Vines, Amesbury Hamlet, Timsbury, Bath, BA2 0HF.
As a loyal Westcountryman it’s my duty to suggest you visit www.scrumpyandwestern.co.uk
