The Week In A Bad Education Towers #36

Hello you! Lets get this out of the way: no Zelda chat here as the game came out a week before payday and I needed to drop the money on new glasses so this is a Tears of The Kingdom spoiler free zone.

FOR NOW.

So what have I been up to?

I had my early birthday present this week, which was a trip to see Garth Marenghi's Terrortome live show!

Now, we all know how much I love Darkplace, so the chance of seeing the live show was brilliant. Naturally, things couldn't be that easy thanks to a train strike but you can always rely on the Megabus (even when its half an hour late) so me and the eldest got to Bristol ready to be TERRIFIED.

And to laugh ourselves silly; the show is a hoot. Its essentially a one man show with Garth reading from his latest book Terrortome and then a Q&A with the audience. I've read the book, but having it read out by Garth only accentuates just how funny the language in the book is. The asides, the ridiculous descriptions are all accentuated by a raised eyebrow or an extra pause as Garth looks up from the pages. its not the same as seeing the original Marenghi stage shows of the early 2000s, but its a great snapshot of how that character connects to an audience.

The audience Q&A that follows is also great, as that explores another aspect of the character; seeing how this blowhard's self built word of delusion bumps up against reality. Of course, with this audience he is to extent preaching to the converted, but the questions allow great riffs around how Garth views various subjects invariably punctuated by self delusion that gets a big laugh.

Before seeing the show it also got me to fully process my thoughts on Marenghi coming back; we all of course know that the character is a creation of Mathew Holness, who after Darkplace moved on from comedy into directing short films and then a feature. I remember in one interview him saying how he didn't enjoy comedy and wanted to move away from that with his film work.

So after the joy of hearing the news of the book came the idea that, I don't know, the thought that this was a regression? Possum got great reviews but it was another cult hit, so returning to the 'safe' space of Marenghi felt like a step backwards. The character and show was such a coming together of people and creators at a certain time that couldn't really be replicated in quite the same way.

But in reading some of the interviews done around the book tours it doesn't sound like this, it sounds like someone coming back to something they enjoyed and re-discovering that joy. There's probably some comparisons to Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge, how Coogan once described how Alan had once been an albatross that became a comfy leather jacket.

So the show then ends up feeling like a celebration, of Garth and the time that Darkplace was made and how the audience for him is still there and has only grown over time.

Of course, the only problem here is that this was the last show of the tour so you can't go and see it. But later in the year there's another book and another tour so I'd heartily recommend keeping both of those things on your radar.

So watched this video this morning:

Episode titles for the upcoming Doctor Who specials, I assume The Giggler is the one thats being debated the most? Russel T Davies did always have a knack for a daft creature name, and something that would translate to merch real well so will have to wait and see how this one goes. Still looking forward to it though!

The relentless scheduling of posts continues with 2 and a bit videos:

Still catching up with the podcast episodes on YouTube, don't think Podcasts have come to the UK YouTube Music app as yet but no harm in sticking stuff out there.

A look at Flicky on the Mega Drive. I'm half tempted to spin this out into a longer video about people's attitudes to arcade conversions; arcade perfect was always a goal, but there comes a point when arcade perfect isn't perfect because the perfect we want is newer? Any one fancy that?

And a short, just really to confirm that I shouldn't be allowed out shopping by myself.

And that'll do, hoping for a cinema trip next week so lets see how that all goes!

Bye!