Thursday 5 November 2009

Teknikal Diffikulties: One In A Million

I’ll never forget the day I stumbled across Teknikal Diffikulties (abbreviated to TekDiff for people in a hurry). The concept grabbed me straight away, a one man sketch comedy that was well written, well paced and incredibly funny! How many times do you see all three of those in the same show? And...more importantly...why haven’t YOU heard it yet?

“Cayenne” Chris Conroy is the brainchild behind the project. Since early 2005 he has been working constantly on his audio comedy production. From the early days of short and unconfident episodes of silliness, Mister Conroy has taken critique and praise and become not just a proficient audio engineer but a very funny and likeable guy who knows he has a body of work he can be proud of.

In the past year, TekDiff has changed into something better-rounded; a serialised 30-minute comedy show that wouldn’t sound out of place on Radio 4. Like the best comedy shows of our generation, Cayenne can deploy a mass of memorable characters into bizarre, Python-esque “stream of consciousness” situations that always result in a laugh. A fan of TekDiff recently compiled a list of the entities dreamed up by Mister Conroy and brought to life through audio, and that list has now overshot three hundred!

What really blows me away about TekDiff is the attention to detail and the time and effort that goes into a project like this. Cayenne is a one-man army. He doesn’t get the actors round to read their parts, then edits the sound effects in. Cayenne does everything. Every voice you hear, every car horn you hear and every chuckle you expel is as a result of time, patience and talent of one man in a whisper room no bigger than a public phone box. I believe there’s a lot of people in the Podosphere that put a lot of effort into what they do, but I will go on the record and say that Chris Conroy is the hardest working man of them all.

Currently on the RSS feed Cayenne is finishing off an audio drama called “The Account” so for the funnies, you may need to dig back a bit. As for this “Account” thing I speak of...that’s another review for another time.

I think that if Cayenne could improve one thing about TekDiff it should be its marketing. The show is one of the best things on the Internet right now. It’s unique, it feels fresh and it could have mass appeal if only more people knew about it. I’ve searched high and low and there is no one person offering this sort of download one a near-weekly basis. If you’re a fan of Monty Python or any surrealist comedy, or if you have the ability to laugh and smile then I insist that you get ahold of Teknikal Diffikulties. Once you hear it and fall in love with it, tell others. Spread the word because Cayenne needs to be heard – he bloody deserves it!

The Matt Berry Podcast: A Short, Sharp Shambles


(Many thanks to guest reviewer Clive Pounds for weighing in on this Podcast!)

You can’t get into the iTunes comedy chart at the moment for the swathes of Absolute Radio or 6Music podcasts devoted to comedians who’ve helmed their stations – no matter how brief their tenure. The two of them, quite understandably, stick up podcasts for their regular presenters – but will also devote a whole ‘cast to one comedian who happens to be standing in for a couple of weeks – and that takes up valuable places in the ruddy chart! Great advertising for the broadcasters (both of which I really like) but terrible news for us lower-rent podcasters trying to get some recognition. Yes! MOAN, MOAN, MOAN!

I’m not sure if the Matt Berry podcast is one of these short-lived ad-spot podcasts, but I hope it isn’t. It’s either brilliantly inept or pre-programmed to seem so and, either way, it’s very, very funny. You probably know Berry from The Mighty Boosh, or love his work in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace or, if you’re a devotee, will be able to quote his work in Snuff Box.

In his own vehicle, he’s able to demonstrate his musical side more easily, whilst also rudely interrupting guests with stingers, disrespecting Garth Marenghi’s vast canon of work to his face and, more worryingly, having surreal interior dialogues about his ability to DJ.

It’s a short, sharp shambles – free to download and highly recommended. Even if it only lasts for three shows.

Wednesday 4 November 2009

As It Occurs To Me: From Fist To Fun

Richard Herring is a hard working guy! Not content to sit on his laurels from his success with former partner Stewart Lee, he’s forever writing, starring and talking! His return to form alongside Andrew Collins made a bold statement in the Podcast world, that you don’t need the backing of a corporation or a huge production suite to make an acclaimed Podcast. All it took was two friends, a stack of newspapers and a flimsy laptop in the attic to make the beloved Collings and Herrin Podcast. But Richard, a comedy writer extrodinaire, pined for something a bit meatier. True, he has been writing a nearly-daily blog on his website for the longest of times now but he needed something more. He wanted to perform his work and get back into radio shape. But surely he couldn’t do that without the backing of a corporation or a huge production suite? You obviously don’t know Richard that well do you?

Still fairly new to the world but already pride of place on the iTunes front page, As It Occurs To Me is Richard Herring’s take on the events of the previous week both in his personal life and the wide world around him. But this isn’t just another Pod-Ramble: Herring has enlisted the services of comedian Dan Tetsell and TV star “TV’s Emma Kennedy” and every week takes to the stage of the Leicester Square Theatre to perform his work in front of a paying audience. The result is broadcast, warts and all, to the world wide web twenty four short hours later.

And that’s what makes this concept so interesting. I went to see BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show recorded in London a few years and it’s incredible how much hits the cutting room floor when you hear the product back (they did use one of my jokes, which means that I can put “BBC Comedy writer” on my CV for time infinatum). With Richard, nothing touches said floor. You get everything, the jokes that didn’t quite make it, the re-takes, the fluffs and the corpsing. My initial reaction was that it was a lazy way to do it, but in hindsight it really makes the show likeable. Team Herring are sticking it to the man by proving that they’ve got the talent to make a weekly news show off their own backs and have no problem in laying it bare. They all know it’s not a polished product, but it makes it so much more charming and fun!

As It Occurs To Me (or, it’s catchy nickname of Ay-I-Otima) is another example of Richard Herring proving just how talented he can be when he sets his mind to it. He understands the new media world and knows how he can use it to his advantage. With a solid supporting cast of similar minded entertainers it’s worth a listen because there’s nothing else quite like this on the web. At least, as it occurs to me!