Best Days of Your Life

Hey, I thought I'd write a blog about my recent comedy show... if you came thank you so much, you were the best most loveliest audience in the world. You laughed a lot, which either means I was funny or you're just super lovely friends that would pay to fake laugh for a hour just because you care about me. Both options are positive so I don't really mind.

 I tried to video the performance but although the record button was pressed unfortunately the camera which we set up on a tripod had already turned itself off by then so nothing got recorded :( sorry Lydia in Australia. I'll have to do a world tour and come to you. Anyway this blog is kind instead of a video.

So a while ago (maybe 6 months ago) I signed up for a slot at the Liverpool Comedy Festival's "funny looking fringe". That name constantly brought back painful flashbacks of when I used to have my very own funny looking fringe (why mum why??!!). Once I got over that I could start preparing material for the hour long show. I'd only ever done about 12 minutes of comedy at any one time before, so this was quite a challenge for me. I decided that the theme of my show would be my school days... because I thought that would be fairly relatable to everyone. Although some more than others, it works best if you were a similar age to me and British. This is the flyer I made.

The blurb is:
School days are the best days of your life, if you die at 16 and can’t remember before 4.

Blending the everyday with the surreal, comedian Hannah Jones remembers surviving school in the 90s as a dyslexic ginger.

“Whimsical” and “lovely” comedy, this is group therapy for those who were never cool enough to sit on the back seat of the bus. 

But guess what, someone who regularly sat on the back of the bus came... Danni McGuinness the show was not written for the likes of you!

I had a bit of a set made from things that remind me of school

and also some fake motivational posters because my secondary school was big on that once. Mine said:

Together 

Everyone

Achieves 

Mediocrity

There is no "I" in team, unless you're dyslexic.

There's no such word as "cantywantydodar"

You can achieve anything if you have rich parents.

Believe in yourself, 'cause everyone else thinks your an idiot.

Dan introduced the show in character as a strict head master. With "settle down it's you're own time you're wasting etc."

The show was around 50% new material. I got in some of my old classic stuff like eskimo muslims (about how hard it is for them in summer time Ramadan), the get your own back story (the one where I attempted to murder my teacher), my opposite songs (Think of a song title and then make every word the opposite word e.g Bye bye miss ameriacan pie = hello Mr Iraqi salad).

I also did a lot of new stuff... A whole new bit about sex ed and how in my school only set 1s were deemed sensible enough to put condoms on cucumbers, which is natural selection in reverse. I had a new bit about P.E. the horrors of the bleep test and sports day, how I'd set my sights on being an Olympic egg and spooner only to discover that wasn't a thing.

I had a new joke about king henry v111. 

Did you know he invented tinder?... Well not exactly. He invented the concept of swipe left and the head is gone. (It works better with some actions)

One of my favourite new bits was about when I had to keep a dream diary for psychology A-level. In this section I acted out 3 genuine dreams I had with some help from Dan and some homemade costumes. So there was the dream that I was a pond and a horse was drinking me. Then the dream that putting sweetcorn in your armpits was a new way of taking drugs....this was kind of funny coz we obviously hadn't practised with the actual sweetcorn before the really performance so it got a bit messy with sweetcorn water going everywhere. The third dream was the most surreal and most time intensive costume wise:

I dreamt that my husband was the Suez canal, but I was still me, obvs. So we had the kind of conversation you would have in that position:

You're a canal

Not just any old canal, I'm the Suez canal.

You're the Suez canal but I'm still me?

Yeah is that ok?

I kind of liked you how you were before?

You did say you'd love me whatever.

But this is not really what I imagined when I said that. Am I going to have to move house? Because I'm guessing you'll have to stay where you are because you're a major trade route and everything.

Yep?

And can we still have children?

Want to give it a go?

I'm sure all my married blog readers have had similar conversations with their spouses about these kind of marital issues. It's tough but you've made a promise so you've just got to work at it.

I did a bit about romance, I read out my first valentines card from 1996 (age 10)...

Then I read out this bit from my diary of feb 2000. I'm just including this for my school friends non of whom could see it because they're not in Liverpool, but they got a mention. 

"14th February

Today is valentines day and I actually got a valentines present! (I haven't had one since year 5) Abbie knew who it's from but she won't tell me but she says it's real which is surprising because most of our class have fake ones from me and Gillian....

February 15th 

I've found out who sent me the ballon because he told Abbie, Abbie told Lauren, Lauren told Helen and they kept it a secret for ages and wouldn't tell me which is out of order because it's nothing to do with them. Anyway I finally bribed them to tell me but I wish they hadn't because when you don't know you can have some hope but when you know it's Adam it's really boring."

I hope Adam doesn't end up seeing this but if he does...sorry, I wish you all the best, thanks for the balloon.

It was great being part of the festival, I went to see a lot of other shows I particularly liked Shaved Dog and Geins Family Gift Shop. Gav did a great job of organising the whole thing. He's like the mother hen of the Liverpool alternative comedy scene or slightly more offensively "the fat controller of comedy". I didn't say that, that was cheeky Rob Bond.

P.s thanks to my brother in law Josh for some of these photos (he took the good ones)