Glom of Nit #30: What goes on tour stays on tour
The road beckons, the books are being written, the world is weird.
Hello there.
I’m about to go on tour. This isn’t the first time I’ve done so – I’ve been an occasional musician for twenty years, and I’ve been on tour many times. In 2002, I schlepped across the UK in a bright yellow splitter van with my band The Pittstops, sleeping on floors in a rockabilly flat in Aberdeen, getting horribly drunk on Pangalactic Gargle Blasters at the worst/best rock club in Hull, navigating by the stars (no, really) because we’d got thoroughly lost in the Buckinghamshire countryside, and this was before anyone had GPS. I was 21. It’s a good way to spend time in your 20s.
In 2007, I did a month selling t-shirts for my friend’s band, GoodBooks. We ended that one, again, in Aberdeen, where I was gaffa-taped to a chair for reasons that I can no longer remember but seemed funny at the time. There was talk of that city’s then-notorious £5-lapdances after the show. I am thankful to this day that I declined that particular visit. In The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing we crisscrossed this sceptered Isle many times, and the proudly un-sceptered USA twice. We drove across the Brooklyn and Golden Gate bridges within three weeks of each other. We nearly got arrested in Pittsburgh and played a show in South Carolina where it was so hot that even after an hour of sweaty punk mayhem, it was still cooler on the stage than it was outside. We crested a hill in Arizona to see the open desert spread out before us while the radio played ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’; and we broke down in the snow on the A1 driving between York and Milton Keynes. So many adventures. There’s an hour’s worth of tour diaries to watch here if you’re interested. I promise they’re a hoot.
I love touring. It’s exhausting, weird, exhilarating, stressful, terrifying. It is its own travelling bubble of mayhem. 1
This tour, though, is different. This is just me. I’m taking The Magic of Terry Pratchett on the Road – the stand-up show I wrote based on my book and took to the Edinburgh Fringe last year. This won’t be the road-weathered band-of-brothers camaraderie of punk rock. There’s no van. I’m getting trains, or friends are giving me lifts. Sometimes I’ll have people along for the ride to help flog books after the show or a nurse a beer with in a Premier Inn bar somewhere,2 sometime my lovely girlfriend will be keeping me company and keeping me sane, and sometimes I’m going to be on my own. Just me, a suitcase full of books, a laptop and hopefully a room full of people ready to laugh (and probably cry a little, too. It’s got sad bits, this show.)
There are currently 26 dates between now and mid-June, and there’s more to come after that, taking us to the end of the year. It will be the busiest I’ll have ever been as a performer. It will also be the first time in 14 years of doing comedy that I will make most of my income from shows. Obviously the imposter syndrome is at huge, weird heights but I’m trying to allow myself a small moment to celebrate that.
It’s also going to be odd, and I’m going to have to prepare myself for that, too. Comedy tours aren’t really like music ones. They’re spread out rather than concentrated into a few weeks (it’s hard to sell a Monday night comedy show). You tend to be on your own a lot. The shape of my week will be defined by the peaks and troughs of performing – huge expenditure of energy Thurs-Sunday, and then trying to write books and do bits of other work Monday-weds when I’m sure my mind will be casting forward to the next show. I’m not sure what that’s going to do to me psychologically. It’ll be interesting to find out. Although after my unwise triple-show month at the Fringe last summer it’ll probably be a doddle.
ANYHOO. My adventure starts this Thursday in Totton, near Southampton. I would love it, dearly, if you were to come and say hi. Maybe give me a hug and something with vitamins in it and tell me to buck up if I’m looking tired. It’ll be a pleasure to see you.
Marc
Upcoming live shows and tour dates
The Magic of Terry Pratchett 2024 Tour (WITH NEW DATES)
More dates to be announced. TICKETS ONSALE HERE.
A quick note on where I’m not going. There are, obviously, quite a lot of places on planet Earth. There are even quite a lot of places in the UK, and quite obviously, not all of those places are represented in this list. I’m not, for example, going to Wales. This isn’t because I don’t like Wales. I LOVE Wales. I love Welsh people. Possibly a little too much, if I’m honest. We didn’t choose to ignore Wales. Or Cornwall. Or the North West. Or the Highlands. Or the town you happen to live in. I have an excellent promotor and live booker for this tour, and she’s doing her absolute best to get me everywhere. of course, I’m happy to go everywhere. But there’s a lot of moving parts. There has to be an available venue. That venue has to be interested in doing the show. They have to have an available slot in which I can perform the show, and I have to be available that day. Then there’s all the tedious financial side that I, thankfully, don’t have to think about because I’m lucky enough to have someone doing it for me. All of those things have to line up in order to make a show happen. If I’m not coming to your town it’s not because I’m avoiding it out of spite. So please, please, please don’t send me messages accusing me of not caring about [insert area of the country here], or implying I am somehow overlooking you. It happens literally every time any artist releases tour dates. It is NOT OUR FAULT.
There are a bunch more shows to announce for later in the year, and we’re working really hard to try and get those other areas in. You can help by contacting your local venue and asking them to book the show. If enough people do that then, I promise, they’ll listen. Or have a go at promoting a show yourself! Want to put the show on? Email Corrie Maguire Management.
1 FEB Hanger Farm Arts Centre TOTTON TICKETS
2 FEB Tacchi Morris Arts Centre TAUNTON TICKETS
8 FEB Mill Arts Centre BANBURY TICKETS
10 FEB The Stables MILTON KEYNES - SOLD OUT
15 FEB Arts Centre SWINDON TICKETS
17 FEB Royal & Derngate Studio NORTHAMPTON TICKETS
18 FEB Glee BIRMINGHAM TICKETS
20 FEB Arts Centre COLCHESTER TICKETS
29 FEB Komedia, BRIGHTON TICKETS
1 MARCH The Y Theatre LEICESTER TICKETS
3 MARCH The Stand NEWCASTLE TICKETS
14 MARCH The Theatre CHIPPING NORTON TICKETS
15 MARCH ANDOVER The Lights TICKETS
22 MARCH Trinity Theatre TUNBRIDGE WELLS TICKETS
23 MARCH Churchill Theatre BROMLEY TICKETS
24 MARCH Public Hall BECCLES TICKETS
28 MARCH Nordern Farm MAIDENHEAD TICKETS
10 APRIL Bellerby Studio GUILDFORD TICKETS
12 APRIL Dixon Studio SOUTHEND TICKETS
19 APRIL Queens Hall HEXHAM TICKETS
20 APRIL The Stand EDINBURGH TICKETS
21 APRIL The Stand GLASGOW TICKETS
25 APRIL Town Hall MIDDLESBOROUGH TICKETS
31 MAY UK Games Expo BIRMINGHAM INFO
1 JUNE UK Games Expo BIRMINGHAM INFO
4 MAY The Atkinson SOUTHPORT (ticket link tba)
18 MAY Walker Theatre SHREWSBURY (ticket link tba)
15 JUNE Theatre Royal WINCHESTER (ticket link tba)
27 JUNE Foxlowe Arts Centre LEEK TICKETS
2-5 AUG International Discworld Convention BIRMINGHAM INFO
Other gigs
LEICESTER COMEDY FESTIVAL
23 FEB Phoenix LEICESTER - performing hour of stand-up (not Terry Pratchett related) TICKETS
Stuff I’ve written this month
All the ways in which 2023 became the year that time forgot (Independent)
Our Flag Means Death is so much more than a “Gay Pirate Show” (Metro)
Terry Pratchett - Hells Beekeeper (Bee Craft) (print/digital edition only)
Interview: The Best Terry Pratchett Books (Five Books)
Podcast appearance: I’ve never read Discworld. (recorded onstage after my show in Belfast a few weeks ago).
Radio Interview: Marc Burrows Nirvana: A Detailed Guide.
Recommendations
New music:
ALBUM – The Smile: Wall of Eyes
ALBUM – Sleater Kinney: Little Rope
New song – Penfriend ‘Future Consumer’
TV Shows:
Look, I know I’m not the only one totally obsessed with The Traitors, but I got totally obsessed with The Traitors.
I’m also not ashamed to admit how much I loved Masters of the Universe: Revolution, the third instalment in Kevin Smith’s He-Man reboot. Which pretends to be aimed at nine-year-olds but is actually targeted squarely at the nostalgic sweet spot of the average forty-something nerd. It’s bonkers and brilliant and did everything I wanted and I spent a happy Friday afternoon binging it while getting over a cold.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
Marc x
If you’d like a taste of life on the road, the two definitive books on the subject are Henry Rollins’ 1980s tour diaries, Get In The Van and Steven Hanley’s memoir of life on the road in The Fall, The Big Midweek. All the weirdness and chaos is there to see. Also, the allegedly fictional This Is Spinal Tap is 200 times more accurate than you’d think.
I am a great believer in the Premier Inn. You always know what you’re getting. The beds are comfy, the breakfasts are fine and the wifi is tolerable. Travelodges are okay every once in a while but often have a thin-mattress bleakness to them that I don’t find in The Premier Inn. They’re not paying me to say this, but I would absolutely take their money if they were.
We wanted to see you in Taunton but disabled seats have gone so we can’t come!
Come to Washington state. See the real Slater Kenny. 😂. Evergreen would probably be a great place for your show.