Glom of Nit #43 What death onstage feels like
Globetrotting, tour dates, Girls Aloud and the most harrowing experience a comedian can have.
The usual monthly musings on whatnot
Upcoming tour dates
An excerpt from my work-in-progress book
Music and film recommendations.
BUT BEFORE THAT! I’m doing live gigs, about Terry Pratchett, Britpop and general stand up shows ALL OVER THE PLACE in the next few months, including London this weekend. CHECK OUT THE DATES HERE.
Also PLEASE DO drop me a line by replying to this email, or the post on Substack or finding me on social media. Unless it’s to point out a typo. Don’t do that. No-one likes it when you do that.
Hello there.
The punchline to the opening joke of my current stand up set is a pause, and then the word “legitimately”. I’ll admit that it doesn’t work especially well in isolation, but that’s okay — it almost always comes after a set up. And it lands. Usually. I’ve been doing it for a month or so at various gigs, and it’s been doing well. But not at this gig. At this gig … crickets. Nothing. Not a titter. Not a sound. Not a sausage. Not a dicky bird.
I push into the next joke. The punchline for that one is “to the best of my knowledge, you cannot buy an awkward teenager on Temu.” Again, you probably need the feed line for it to work. Although at this gig I’m not sure it made much difference. It too, is greeted with heavy, cloying silence.
One week earlier. The sound of 500 people, all laughing at once, rolling around the inside of a huge, old theatre. You generated that. Things you pulled out of your brain created those moments.
Do you know what’s louder than the noise made by 500 people laughing uproariously, all at the same time? The sound of seven people not laughing at all. A packed theatre is a racket. A nearly empty room, though, can be deafening. An absence of sound so loud it is actively painful.
The next bit. “ … his wife”. This joke kills, usually. One of those banker punchlines you use to generate a wave of energy you can surf into the next routine. There is, if you listen carefully, really carefully, a short, snorted exhale. A slightly louder breath than the previous one. It’s not actually a laugh, though it is, at least, an instinctive response. It’s sort-of like a laugh.
Surging with the megawatt energy of a sold out theatre laughing as one. Throwing in asides and improvising. Crackling with life. This is what magic feels like.
The sound of seven people not laughing. Or, generously, six people not laughing and one emitting a breath that was fractionally louder than their previous one. I am crushed by the rolling, overwhelming indifference. There are seven people in the room. It’s a Tuesday night, above a pub somewhere on the outskirts of Bristol. Five of the seven are under 22. Kids, really, lounging in tracksuit bottoms and hoodies. Smirking a bit. Brimming with the revolting confidence of the young. The other two are women in their 40s or 50s. They cackle and heckle throughout the night. But not for me. I’d quite like a heckle at this point. I can do something with a heckle. A heckle is energy. For me, though, it’s silence.
I go into an old bit. A really reliable bit, that I’ve been doing for a few years. It’s a good bit of a stand up, and I deliver it with an easy confidence. It evokes a few chuckles — short surges of power that wind the dynamo, just a little. I’ve done these jokes to thousands of people, and they’ve generally enjoyed them. Tonight they’re tolerated. Though not enough.
I let myself stop and take in the laughs as the applause breaks out. I let the punchlines breathe and allow the audience to react. I stay a point of stillness until the laughter drifts and settles like snow and I can move on. Move. Stop. Focus. Deliver. Pause. Wait. Join in. I am conducting an orchestra of joy. Something inside me glows like the element in a lightbulb.
I use the final five minutes onstage to try some new bits about Oasis from The Britpop Hour, my new stand up show. I think they’re potentially quite reliable jokes. I’ve been honing and polishing. They’ve worked at other gigs. I know these kids are young, but Oasis are a pretty universal reference. I’m greeted with more of the nasal exhaling, which seems to be this audiences equivalent of a guffaw. Inside, my self-esteem is being dragged across hot coals. I’m now delivering it terribly. I’m rushing. The places where I’m used to pausing for laughter are empty, and I’m gabbling to fill them. Grasping and clawing at anything, like a man falling down the side of a building. The stage is a thousand miles wide and a million miles deep. I am alone, utterly. The real world of time and space has gone. Hours and seconds and millennia become interchangeable. Reality is something different entirely. Utter despair. A world where validation and response have been stilled.
The applause is a wave. It crashes and thunders, but somehow it’s also gentle. It wraps around me and lifts me into the air, higher and higher, scraping the rafters the theatre. I am floating on the ceiling. The sound has physical form. I can slide down it. I can swim through it. It supports me completely.
I pull myself over the final punchline and thank the audience. For their endurance, mostly. I have wasted their time. The world shrinks to almost nothing, and I am a speck on a speck on a speck.
After the show one of the two tipsy woman kindly offers me some advice. “If you want to keep doing this, you need to slow down. You’re clearly very clever but not everyone is as clever as you and they don’t get it. Keep at it!”
I have been a comedian for sixteen years.
What it looks like when it’s going well —photo Kim Burrows
So why am I telling you this? Every comedian has had this gig. It’s not my first rodeo, and the only way it would be my last is if I vowed to stay off stage forever. But it has been a while since I died quite that hard. I’m not even a 100% sure why. I’d done the exact same material a few days earlier at the Brighton Fringe and it had gone over beautifully. Perhaps I’m telling you this because, on some level, this is the comedian I worry I actually am. That the sell-out shows, and the rapturous responses and the ticket sales are a some sort of weird fluke. Maybe I’m telling you this because all that most writers want is to be seen and understood, and this is part of the whole. And maybe i’m telling you this because it’s absurd. Because humans are messy and chaotic and unpredictable, and the spells we weave to make them laugh have a thousand variables at play and you can study the craft for a lifetime and still not understand all of them. There are some people who will tell you that there’s no such thing as an unplayable room … just comics who are not good enough to play them. And on some level, I’ve always thought that was true. There’s always so much to learn.
Anyway, here endeth today’s lesson. I’m still not sure why I felt the need to give it. To finish off, here’s a quick news roundup:
It’s been a busy old month. I’ve done two previews of The Britpop Hour, and it feels like there’s a good show there, or at least there will be once it’s done. Meanwhile, Mistletoe & Vinyl, the “Christmas number ones” book, has come back from the editor surprisingly unscathed, so i’m cautiously optimistic that there’s a good book there as well. We’re currently putting together a book tour, of book shops, record shops and a few craft beer places, which I’m very excited about. Not least because I’m writing a short stand up show for it (yes this means that I will be touring three different stand up shows between September 2025 and May 2026. Why not? Let’s have a challenge.) Or I will, eventually. I’ve just done a run of five shows of the The Magic of Terry Pratchett, three at the Prague Fringe in the beautiful Czech capital, and two riotous ones at the UK Games Expo. Hello to everyone who came to those and everyone I met! Four of those sold out! I still haven’t booked a driving lesson.
Onstage in Prague
There are PLENTY of opportunities to come and see me play live, and I would very, very much love it if you did.
Marc B x
Tour update
THE BRITPOP HOUR
Join award-winning writer-comedian Marc Burrows for a multi-media stand up celebration of one of British music's most iconic and enduring moments, marking 30 years since the Blur vs Oasis chart war.
Music journalist Marc (Guardian, The Quietus, Big Issue) dives into the stories, rivalries, OTT personalities and some of the finest music the UK has ever produced. Part nostalgic love letter, part send-up, part rock'n'roll party. DoyaknowwhatImean?
8 JUNE Hen & Chickens LONDON TICKETS
17 JUNE The Albert Arms ESHER (with Juliette Burton) TICKETS
18 JUNE The Cornerhouse SURBITON (with Juliette Burton) TICKETS
26 JUNE West End Arts Centre ALDERSHOT TICKETS
4 JULY Old Road Tavern CHIPPENHAM details tba
10 JULY Forest Arts Centre NEW MILTON TICKETS
11 JULY Museum of Comedy LONDON (with Juliette Burton) TICKETS
19 JULY Norden Farm MAIDENHEAD TICKETS
22 JULY Hen & Chickens LONDON TICKETS
24 BRIGHTON Komedia TICKETS
And then of course there’s THE EDINBURGH FRINGE …
Edinburgh onsale here: https://underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/event/the-britpop-hour
2026 UK TOUR - THE BRITPOP SHOW!
06 MARCH The Junction CAMBRIDGE TICKETS
07 MARCH Arts Centre COLCHESTER TICKETS
20 MARCH The Stables MILTON KEYNES TICKETS
21 MARCH Y Theatre LEICESTER TICKETS
27 MARCH Hen & Chickens BRISTOL TICKETS
03 APRIL Rondo Theatre BATH TICKETS
09 APRIL The Attic SOUTHAMPTON TICKETS
10 APRIL The Lights ANDOVER TICKETS
11 APRIL Bellerby Studio GUILDFORD onsale 9th May
15 APRIL Playhouse NORWICH tickets tba
17 APRIL Comedy Hall TIVERTON TICKETS
19 APRIL Glee BIRMINGHAM TICKETS
21 APRIL Theatre Severn SHREWSBURY TICKETS
22 APRIL The Atkinson SOUTHPORT TICKETS
24 APRIL Waterside Arts SALE tickets onsale 7th May
25 APRIL Foundry SHEFFIELD TICKETS
26 APRIL Glee LEEDS TICKETS
28 APRIL The Stand EDINBURGH TICKETS
29 APRIL The Stand GLASGOW TICKETS
30 APRIL The Stand NEWCASTLE TICKETS
THE MAGIC OF TERRY PRATCHETT
20 JULY Sudely Castle FANTASY FOREST FESTIVAL TICKETS*
04 SEPT The Y Theatre LEICESTER TICKETS
05 SEPT The Civic STOURPORT TICKETS
13 SEPT The Alex FAVERSHAM TICKETS
21 SEPT Theatre Severn SHREWSBURY TICKETS
27 SEPT Komedia BRIGHTON TICKETS
02 OCT The Institute BRAINTREE details soon
04 OCT The Point EASTLEIGH TICKETS
19 OCT Phoenix EXETER TICKETS
26 OCT Spa Theatre SCARBOROUGH TICKETS
28 OCT The Stand NEWCASTLE TICKETS
31 OCT Little Theatre CHORLEY TICKETS
*Require event ticket
OTHER LIVE APPEARANCES
06 JUNE - Get Your Geek On comedy night (with Juliette Burton, Sam See and Sooz Kempner) Phoenix - LONDON TICKETS
29 JUNE Brockley Brewery - LONDON
15 JULY - Chops - BRISTOL (new material spot)
Many more dates to be announced
Recommendations
Music
Chalked under “Things I never thought would happen” — there is a new Pulp album out! GLORY BE! You can listen to it now! It’s a thing! It exists! It’s Brilliant. It’s just so very, very, very Pulp and Jarvis remains the greatest lyricist of the era.
And just to add to the very on-brand vibe … There’s a new Suede album coming and a new single out now! This is less of a surprise … Suede’s time split-up is feeling more and more like a blip as time goes by. In fact, there are now as many Suede “reunion” albums as were released before they split up. I’d argue some of the band’s best work has been done in the last decade. The quality has never dropped, which is quite astonishing, really. Their work still treads this impeccable line between grandiose and hungry, and they’re a phenomenal live band. As good as they ever were. This is textbook, classic Suede.
TV
ANDOR ANDOR ANDOR ANDOR ANDOR ANDOR.
Now the dust has settled on this incredible season of TV we can look back on the whole, and my god, I’m not sure we ever deserved Andor. The concepts! The writing! It never overexplains, it trusts the audience to go with it. The performances are off-the-scale magnificent. The only complaint I have is that if you want Rogue One straight afterwards, and lets face it, we all have, you spend your time wondering why we’re focussing on this quite dull girl when the real hero is stood next to her. A triumph. Please, please, please let Tony Gillroy make more Star Wars.
Work in progress book excerpt
This in an excerpt from the book I’m working on right now, due out this time next year. Please don’t share it, and remember this is a work in progress and could change hugely before publication.
Mistletoe & Vinyl: The Story of the Christmas Number One
The following section follows a discussion about the rise of reality TV, Popstars, and the first season of Pop Idol, and the announcement of Popstars: The Rivals, which would create two pop bands that would go head to head for 2002 Christmas number one.
Chapter 15 — How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The team behind Popstars was right about one of their singles being a dead cert for Christmas No. 1, though they were wrong about just about everything else. The two freshly minted groups were chosen in separate finals, the boys on 23 November and the girls the following week, and the two singles were formally launched with performances on 7 December. No episode got above nine million viewers, falling short of the peaks of Pop Idol and the original Popstars. The new boy band, signed to Jive records, was christened One True Voice and from the start, even before the line-up was finalised, they were the favourites to bag the big prize, with William Hill offering odds of 4/6 – some of the shortest ever given for a Christmas No. 1 in early December – making them as close to a sure thing as you’ll find in betting. Their single was a double A-side, with ‘Sacred Trust’ as the focus track – a mid-pacer written by the Bee Gees and originally intended for Backstreet Boys, who’d rejected it. In the end the Gibb brothers had used it as filler on their latest album. The flipside, ‘After You’re Gone (I’ll Still Be Loving You)’, was a textbook slushy boy band ballad co-written by Waterman and the band’s Daniel Pearce. The boys were handsome and tastefully styled and had more than a hint about them of Blue, the UK’s current biggest boy band. The fact they’d been paired with the bigger name, Pete Waterman (an “industry legend” as the show went out of its way to remind us), and that the boy’s final was scheduled first, made it very clear which band the producers considered the priority. When Smash Hits agreed to a Popstars feature, it was One True Voice that got the cover. There was a problem, though – both sides of the single were terrible. The Bee Gees had been responsible for some gold in their time, but ‘Sacred Trust’ is no ‘Jive Talkin’’. It’s not even a ‘You Win Again’. Compared to the other song on the disc, however, it was a masterpiece. Waterman and Pearce’s track was utterly limp; a musical wet lettuce, devoid of soul, romance or a hook you could whistle (“It’s nothing like what you’d expect from me or the group,” Waterman proudly told Music Week, inadvertently putting his finger on the problem). The single got its premiere on Terry Wogan’s Radio 2 show, which is rather telling. The man who’d championed ‘There’s No one Quite Like Grandma’ and ‘The Floral Dance’ wasn’t exactly a hip tastemaker. What became very quickly apparent, what was utterly unavoidable in fact, is that One True Voice, in terms of music, presentation and personality, were deeply boring.
Meanwhile, Polydor records, who had signed the girl group, working with minimal input from manager Louis Walsh, had decided that, since everyone assumed they’d be the also-rans anyway, they may as well take a big swing with their artist. The five-piece band, comprising Sarah Harding, Cheryl Tweedy, Kimberly Walsh, Nicola Roberts and Nadine Coyle, was named Girls Aloud, given a neon-and-chrome, futuristic punk style and handed an absolute banger of a single in ‘Sound of the Underground’ written by the cutting-edge Xenomania production team.[1] The song, a mash-up of drum and bass beats and surf guitar, was exciting and sexy and didn’t really sound like anything else happening in the pop mainstream; certainly not in the girl band sphere, where Sugababes had established a sort of arm’s-length cool and an impression of sophistication. Girls Aloud were, by design, far messier and more fun. The whole campaign, from the girls’ image down, was vibrating with attitude and energy – ads for the song carried the perfect tagline: “Buy girls … bye boys!” It worked, too. The tide turned in the girl’s favour extremely quickly – pretty much as soon as anyone heard both songs. Journalist Peter Robinson, for example, who wrote the official companion book to Popstars: The Rivals, was played the two singles early – before the band’s line-ups had been finalised. That afternoon he went straight to the bookies and put £50 on the girls to win.[2] Hearing the two songs side by side, there was no contest at all, it was a no-brainer. The public almost unanimously agreed with him. ‘Sound of the Underground’ went straight in at No. 1 for Christmas week with 213,000 sales, compared to ‘Sacred Trust’’s 148,000. Girls Aloud went on to become one of the biggest pop acts in the country. By August of the following year, One True Voice had split up.
Girls Aloud won the battle, and Popstars: The Rivals certainly won the chart, so in a sense it was mission accomplished. The celebrations, however, were masking a bigger problem. Sales of 213,000 is a very strong hit at any other time of the year, but for Christmas week it’s on the average side (the Spice Girls’ ‘2 Become 1’ had managed 450,000 for example), and it was a notable drop-off from the sales Hear’Say, Will Young and Gareth Gates had achieved with their debut singles, despite ‘Sound of the Underground’ being a substantially stronger song. Partly this could be chalked up to the chart battle gimmick itself – by definition, fans of the Popstars show were being asked to buy one or the other single, not both, splitting the vote. However, even combined with the No. 3 record – ‘Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)’ by fellow Popstars alumnae Cheeky Girls’[1] – the three singles took a week to equal what Will Young’s ‘Evergreen’ had sold on its first day. CD singles were simply not selling in the numbers they had previously. December’s combined music sales had dropped 44% in two years, and 2002’s Christmas week sales were 33% below what they had been in 2000. However, there was some good news. Those final week figures may have been poor compared to 2000, but they were slightly higher than they had been in 2001. The injection of reality TV into the marketplace had caused a small bounce back. The industry took the lesson.
[1] This had originally been recorded by another Polydor girlband, Orchid, whose deal had fallen through. The Girls Aloud version still has the original backing vocals on the chorus.
[2] “The odds were ridiculous at that point. It paid for my Christmas,” as he told Michael Cragg for his book Reach for the Stars.
[1] Popstars: The Rivals actually generated the whole top three that year. The Cheeky Girls were two twins from Transylvania, who’d auditioned on the show and been booted out early. They then signed a hasty deal with Telstar records and put out the Europop novelty ‘Cheeky Song’ while the series was still airing. It was dreadful, obviously, but such is the power of (a) reality TV and (b) weird novelty singles at Christmas, it ended up selling 88,000 records. They managed another three Top 10 hits, including the following year’s ‘Have A Cheeky Christmas’. Later, one of the twins dated Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik. Strange but true.