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Comedy - Reading Comedy Festival preview
October 05, 2006
Meet Little HowardSTAND-UP Howard Read made a bit of coup in the world of comedy a few years ago when he created the world’s first human-cartoon double act. Howard is the human and Little Howard is the little boy who in fact is the cartoon character. When Reading Alive asked Howard how exactly Little Howard works, the answer was quite bemusing. “If I told you, I would have to kill you,” he said. He did disclose however that Little Howard is sort of computer-generated and projected on a screen and that he is able to talk and interact with the audience, calling things like “you in the front row, what’s your name”. For the full article see Thursdays Reading Alive, only in the Evening Post |
The central venue will host four shows over the next three days as part of the grand Reading Comedy Festival.
The fun will start tomorrow night when the multi-award winning comic singer Boothby Graffoe takes the stage at 8.30pm.
Comedy duo McGonagall and Harrold will entertain the crowd on Saturday night while two shows from Howard and Little Howard, the world’s first human-cartoon comedy double act, on Sunday is set to thrill youngsters and adults.
McGonagall and Harrold – Yaks ‘n’ Kilts ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll. Stand-up poets Ashley Harrold and “Elvis” McGonagall started doing comedy together about two years ago after meeting at the famous Cheltenham Literary Festival during a slam competition.
“I met Elvis there a couple of years ago,” Harrold – he is the red-bearded, bowler-hat wearing one – told Reading Alive.
“We came face to face in the final and he beat me – it was tragic, but it’s one of those times where you don’t really mind being beaten by that person because you think ‘I wish I could do that’.”
He added: “We both saw each other and we like what we did.
“We are different enough from one another to complement each other in a show, neither have the same style or write about the same subjects, but still there’s enough similarities in our slightly skewed view about the world.”
Harrold, who has been doing poetry shows for a good seven to eight years now, is in fact from Reading.
“I’m the local poet,” he said.
“I run the Bohemian Nights at the 3B’s on Thursdays and the Poet’s Café at South Street.
“The problem I have with Reading is that I compère a lot of things, I introduce a lot of people and that’s what people see me do, whereas in the rest of the country people see me do poetry, and it’s nice to do a proper gig in the home town.”
As for Elvis, he is the Scottish one, who like the late great rocker of the same name lives “in Graceland caravan car park”, which in his case is “somewhere near Dundee”.
He started doing stand-up about three years ago at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, just a year before meeting Harrold.
“It was the first time I had got up to do anything in front of an audience,” he said.
“I did not know what to expect, I did it completely on the whim and it went really well, so I kept doing it.”
After meeting the pair tried to get on the list of artists performing at this year’s Edinburgh Festival but could not because it was too late.
So instead they headed to the Sunday Times Literary Festival in Oxford, which took place in the spring, and then did a couple more performances of their show Yaks ‘n’ Kilts ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll before getting the booking for the Reading Comedy Festival.
“I deal with yaks, those large Himalayan cow types, and I also verge on existentialism and philosophy” said Harrold.
“Elvis is a lot more topical, he has poems about Tony Blair and TV celebrities.”
Elvis added: “It’s an hour of comedy poetry.
“The way the evening works is one of us gets up and does a few minutes of stuff and hands over the microphone to the other, and it culminates in a glorious finale.”
Of course he did not disclose what exactly that glorious finale was but as a hint he did say it involved the two of them together and it had been written by Ashley.
Although Harrold knows Reading like the back of his hand, Elvis has only been in town twice before.
“All I know about Reading is the railway station and the walk to the arts centre,” he said.
“Oh, and I know the football team is doing quite well… and there’s a rock festival.”
The Scot said he got his inspiration from the grand celeb’s world and politics.
“The celebrity culture I find quite disturbing, the obsession with celebrities, it’s almost like a class system.”
As for the political stuff, well, it’s just what goes on that gets to him really.
“What you write is what moves you to write and I am turning into an angry middle aged man.”
Age which by the way, he refuses to disclose, although he does admit being in “the forties”.
If after you are still not sure whether to go to the pair’s show, Elvis’ summing up of it can only convince you.
“It’s going to be good”, he said.
The show on Saturday kicks off at 8.30pm and tickets cost £7.50.
For bookings, please call the box office on (0118) 960 6060.
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