Good Morning Harry Shaw

We've just played the You Owe Me Glue theme tune 'Good Morning Harry Shaw' by The Digerati. We both agree that it's excellent. It pretty much captures the mood I was looking for when I commisioned it. Fizz loves it too and has this to say "Its a little more gentle and sad than i expected but i think it suits." We'll use it as an opening theme for the first half and probably second half of the show too.

Prop Shop

Fizz and I went shopping for some costumes and props yesterday. Having a carefully prepared budget we made assualt on Glasgow's numerous charity and pound shops. Our haul wasn't entirely plentiful. We spent more time in pubs and cafes. We came away with a headscarf, a United Nations flag (very hard to get we were reliably informed) and two swords.

We also went into the 13th Note in order to get measurements for the stage and see what kind of dressing area we'll have. As it turns out, there's a bit more space than we had thought and we should have a dressing room and a sizeable stage right, with a handy stage left should we require it.

Chortle

We now have a listing on the comedy website Chortle.

"It's Not Pish Mum..."

An enjoyable rehearsal last night. It feels like we're making progress each session and I think everyone seems to be having fun.

The parts have now pretty much all been cast and we spent last night working on the staging of the scenes. We have a lot of other things to worry about in the meantime. At the weekend we're going to source some props for one thing.

We've extended the cast slighlty to include a couple of extras. However they mainly have all the stunts to do.

The theme tune has been recorded and its provisional title has now been changed to "Good Morning Harry Shaw".

The Programme

The Comedy Festival Programme is out and here is our listing. Exciting eh? Mibbie no'. If you dig through the listings you can also find the odd mention of Fizz and I in the stand-up programme.

Another evening of rehearsals and a first appearance for Paul. Another couple of call offs however with Fizz on wean watching duty and Moira packing her bags for her impending flit. Coincidentally Moira made her TV debut tonight as well in Cathedral on BBC 2. So well done Moira.

We walked through the sketches this evening and tomorrow I really should start to cast each sketch and then we can work on the blocking etcetra.

The new sketches that we've added seemed to go down quite well. We've now got to turn a fun table reading into a professional looking show.

Promotion

Now that the ball is properly rolling, we can start to think about promotion and the like. Cathy was on to me this morning with some ideas and you can se a listing for us here and our own page, that has very little on it at the moment. Though it does have the ticket price.

Rehearsal and the Theme

The second Glue rehearsal was missing Tommy since his car prang and Paul, once again held up in Embra due to the snowstorms. We got through a fair bit and there are definite signs of it coming together.

So far we’ve only been doing table readings, but a few little things are being added and are becoming apparent to us. Now we have to do some re-writing and add a few new sketches in for next week.

Our theme tune is coming along nicely as well by all accounts. Digerati bassist Ronnie had this to say, “It’s a kinda bass driven number. Not much too it but it's catchy as fuck. It's been good fun coming up with something with a bit more of a hook than we usually would.” The provisional title for the track is I LICKE MICE.

"I Know aw the Sweet Spots"

The first rehearsal went pretty well. It was a horrible night being that it snowed quite heavily and that we were one down given that Paul couldn't make it through as his train from Edinburgh was cancelled.

The backroom in O'Neill's pub on Sauchiehall Street made for a suitable venue. Shame that we don't appear to be able to get that for every rehearsal.

Some of the sketches are slowly starting to take shape and some of the casting is becoming obvious. We perhaps don't have enough sketches for the girls. We'll have to try and do something about that.

Good News Bads New on the way home.

Good News - The Digerati have written the theme tune. They just have to record it now.

Bad News - Tommy pranged his car on the way home and now it's not driveable.

It's a rollercoaster in the crazy Glue world.

Ready to Go

The first rehearsal is tonight, everyone has confirmed their attendance so that's good. The script is about 90% written and someone (me) was up until 2.30am today printing it off.

Our problem at the moment is being able to secure a regular rehearsal venue that isn't going to cost us too much money.

The First Cast Meeting

We had our first cast meeting last night. Paul was sadly absent, but that just means that he ends up with all the worst parts, so serves him right. I don’t know how much there is to say about it. We took ten minutes to babble to our cast a bit about what we’re doing, handed them 40 or so pages of a script we said wouldn’t be used anyway and then had a drink. The girls seemed quite enthusiastic and Darran was his usual stoic self. Everyone seems well up for it though.

Rehearsals start properly next Monday night.

We have asked Graham if he would like to do sound as he appears very keen to be involved. So in addition to those already mentioned the You Owe Me Glue bandwagon now has on board

Jason Crawford – Lighting
Graham ‘The Ho’ Hosie - Sound

Soggy Biscuit?

As the You Owe Me Glue express gathers speed, here is some comments from our stage manager Tommy from his site Heavy Sedation.

Sniffing Glue
Today I got a sneak preview of the You Owe Me Glue script. You'll be pleased to know that it had me laughing out loud at my desk in work. Not only was I reading it for laughs but also to see what kind of props will be required for the show. Let's just say it should be...a challenge! Someone tell Fizz and Tom that they don't really need to smash two guitars (even though I'd love to see it.) And that soggy biscuit sketch they have planned is just going to be difficult to co-ordinate.

If I Told Them Once, I Told Them a Thousand Times, Spinal Tap THEN Puppet Show

We now have a basic first draft of the script knocked up. Not the whole thing and not polished, but enough so that folk can see what they're getting themselves into.

After I signed up Jason for lighting yesterday I had Graham come to me with his 'theatre design' school qualification. Unfortunately he was just too late. He bowed to Jason's pantomime lighting experience though.

Today I have discovered our first mention on an external site. And thrilled I was not. Scroll down to find us.

Let There Be Lighting Designer

The writing now is taking some shape and at the moment we are looking at having quite easily 60 pages of script for tomorrow night's meeting. We've also hired Jason as our lighting guy. This involved me saying, "You did lighting didn't you?" and then when I received an affirmative response "Awright you're doing our lighting."

Theme Tune

I've just this afternoon commissioned a YOMG theme tune. My brief was that it was to be a knockabout, upbeat kind of thing. I was a bit vague as you can imagine. As a sign post I pointed to the Kids in the Hall theme tune Having an Average Weekend by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes. The band who have accepted this task are The Digerati, who go into the studio this Monday to knock some tunes around.

Get it Write

Our first big writing session last night went reasonably well. Fizz seems much more confident that we have enough good material to see us over the course. However we have to craft it all now.

Almost Started

So, we're almost ready to get things underway, with the script 30% written we're off to a flyer. Yeah we really need to get something done about that. Still, nothing like a bit of pressure to produce the goods.

We suffered a minor blow just before Christmas when we lost one of our actresses, Sara, but we were only short for a few hours and we're delighted with the folk we've assembled so far.

Joining myself and Fizz for the rollercoaster of Glue are;

Moira Byrne
Darran Lightbody
Paul Cumming
Anne-Marie Feeney

Our Stage Manager or Gimp will be Tommy Bradley.

Producing duties fall to Cathy Zahra.

Legal matters will be handled by Nicola Currie.

Artwork and the like will be down to Iain Laurie.

We hope to get the first meeting in about a week's time.