About Me

My name is Mark and I spend all of my time laughing like an idiot. Which is to say that I am a comedy enthusiast, attending a live comedy show pretty much as often as I can. 

I’ve seen some fantastic comedians, from famous faces off the telly that you will be familiar with, to fresh-faced newbies stepping out into the spotlight for the first time. I’ve seen some glorious moments from superstars at their heights, and some of the worst crash-and-burn on-stage deaths. I’ve seen comedy in theatres, halls, community centres, function rooms, pubs, cellars, on a boat and on a bus. 

I volunteer at the Leicester Comedy Festival – the largest dedicated comedy festival in Europe – and also at the Edinburgh Fringe – the largest arts festival in the World.

What do comedians say about me?

Listen to or watch my interview for Richard Gill’s blog and podcast A Rich Comic Life, in which I talk about my earliest memory of comedy, when I was in a band and the new alternatives.

As a young boy I would watch avidly as Eric & Ernie would be in the plays wot Ern wrote. Every Christmas I and a third of the UK population would gather around their coal-fired televisions to watch Eric slap Ernie in the face long before Chris Rock was afforded that distinction. The tween me would howl derisively as Michael Palin would slap John Cleese in the face with a fish, and as a teenager, I would guffaw noisily as Adrian Edmondsen would hit Rik Mayall with whatever was at hand. It was obvious that I adored comedy and extreme violence with a passion.

Like most teenagers I wanted to be in a band and be beloved by adoring fans and snogged by girls. Instead I was in a band that had more props than instruments and someone usually ended up lying on the floor in their underpants. The joke that venues closed after we played there was not without foundation, but it was a fun time and we laughed a lot so I regret less than 80% of it.

Other comedic ventures followed but it’s always been obvious that I’m not the performer type, so instead I am a professional appreciator, basking lazily in the talents of others, and recording them here for posterity.