Before I begin, just know I’m no hero. I’m a frustrated comic who home-schooled her two young children for the best (or worst) part of five months and would do anything to be out of the house. Frankly.
Pre-pandemic, I was running a Welsh language open mic gig at Bloc Coffee, Cardiff. It brought me such joy to see people trying stand-up for the first time, in their first language. Then Covid came and plans were put on hold. But I have always had a soft spot for the venue and its owners as they have been nothing but supportive of what I’ve tried to create there. When I contacted them during the first lockdown and said that as soon as we could do something we would, they were keen and I was deadly serious.
I’ll be honest, I’m not the most organised person, so getting my head around the different guidelines and sourcing individual mic heads and a card reader and trying to get my PA back from Bristol where it had been since January, was a journey in itself.
On the plus side, Bloc Coffee has an outside space in Victoria Park so at least I didn’t have to sort out ventilation.
Navigating the weather has been a challenge (yes, I know we’re in Wales!) but we managed to hold five in-the-flesh gigs up to October. As far as I’m aware, this is the only gig from pre-pandemic Wales that’s currently running* and like I said, I’m no hero, I just got desperate and the venue had an outdoorsy bit. We lucked out.
And so, in Wales, we’re now into our second lockdown and I’ve done what I thought I’d never do and organised an online gig – on Halloween Eve.
The whole point with opening this gig up as soon as possible in the summer was to give comics a much-needed platform and provide audiences with somewhere to go. And this online gig is very much an extension of that. I am tech-illiterate so it will be riddled with issues and I have decided to couple the gig with a fancy dress competition for the audience which, I’m afraid, will get horrifically competitive and I have nothing more to offer as a prize than a tooth (could be baby or puppy – it’s a lucky dip scenario).
Anyway…support us, join us and feast your eyes on the ghoulish babes who have agreed to take part for nothing more than a ticket split and a real sketchy Zoom connection.
Stuart Laws, Carys Eleri, Frank Foucault, Leila Navabi and Jen Smith will be presented by Esyllt Sears at 7.30pm on 30th October 2020. Tickets here!
The link to the gig will be distributed to ticket holders on the day of the gig and everyone will receive a hot drinks voucher to use at Bloc Coffee.
*I could be completely wrong
