By Simon Topping
The podcast currently has 17 episodes available.
Some bitesize best bits from fabulous guests in season 2 including:
Adam Bloom
Anna Nicholson
Andy Riley
Kate Smurthwaite
More snipets to follow next week.
Welcome to the final interview of Season 2. Enjoy my friends . Season 3 is in the works and will be released in 2022. Until then I will be popping up some best bits, and comedy snippets around the theme.
Phil has been a friend for more than a decade; he is a marvellous, warm and engaging man and all round good egg . We talked about lots of thing from his pathway into theatre writing, what he enjoys about writing comedy, the ups and downs of self employe life and much more. He also gives some fabulous advice to anyone thinking of starting as a writer.
Phil Porter is an award wining, Olivier nominated, British playwright, screenwriter and librettist. His plays include Vice Versa (2017), The Miser (adapted 2017), The Man With the Hammer (2016), The Christmas Truce (2014), Blink (2012), and Here Lies Mary Spindler (2009).
Welcome to episode 15 you lucky people.
Today I've have been mostly talking to Anna Nicholson. I saw her one women character comedy show Woman of the Year in 2018 and was blown away by her confidence and funniness, which is why I was surprised to her of her lack of confidence when she was a child. We also talk about theatre in the community, where Anna began her performance career, the New Review show which semented her love of comedy, drama schools and much more.
Anna Nicholson is an actress, comedian, voice over artist and writer. Originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, she specialises in comedy and playing multiple characters.
She has written for BBC’s Crackerjack. and was in the top 3% for the BBC’s Caroline Aherne Bursary for character comedians.
Her solo show, Woman of the Year developed with James Cary (Bluestone 42, Miranda) played at the Brighton Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe and Adelaide Fringe where it won a Best Comedy award.
Friday the 10th September 2021 brings us the 14th Episode
This episode is with cabaret performer and funny woman Fiona Coffey.
Fiona started as a performer in her early 50s. She has done two sell out shows, A touch of Mrs Robinson and Honey's Happening, both wonderful interactive shows.
We chat about starting performing a little later in life. How empowering it is to create your own work. The benefits of knowing ourself more regarding performance and how to make audience participation as fun for the participant as it is for the crowd watching and much more.
Friday the 3rd September2021 brings lucky episode 13.
This episode is with comedy writer, teacher and novelist Dave Cohen.
Dave has many thing on the go. You can book on a sitcom writing course, buy his novel, Stand Up, Barry Goldman or simply listen to his fabulous Podcast, Sitcom Geeks.
We chat about how lucky he has been to be in the right place at the right time, several times; his founding of and firing from the Comedy Store Players, Britain's best know comedy improv outfit; How his brief career as a journalist set him up to write effectively for comedy and much more.
Dave Cohen has been a constant presence on the British comedy scene for more than 35 years.
He has written for some of the most successful TV shows including Have I Got News For You, Spitting Image, BBC sitcoms Not Going Out and My Family, and dozens of radio shows including News Quiz, and Dead Ringers.
He has written nearly 100 song for the multi-BAFTA BBC hit, Horrible Histories.
Friday the 27th August 2021 brings the half way point of 8 consecutive Fridays were I release interviews that I have done with other professionally funny people. We talk about how they got their start in the industry they love.
This episode is with feminist comedian and political activist. Kate Smurthwaite.
Kate has a fabulous Patreon page of news satire you can support here: https://www.patreon.com/newsatkate.
We chat about how, after almost a decade working for banks and hedge funds she made the switch to comedy and how you have to diversify, epsecially in a pandemic, to survive. We also talk about her mum, going to the doctors and much, much more.
Kate performs stand-up comedy all over the UK and around the world
In 2013 she won a Three Week's Editor's Choice Award naming her one of the ten best things about the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2014 she was nominated for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for campaigning against violence against women.
Kate has appeared as a panelist on Question Time as well as The Big Questions, This Morning, BBC News, Sky News, Woman's Hour, The Today Program, The Moral Maze and Newsnight.
Internationally she is probably best-known as the star of a viral video circulated under the name Atheist Bitchslap.
Kate's campaigning work has included almost a decade as spokesperson for Abortion Rights UK and working with female asylum seekers through Women For Refugee Women and Women Asylum Seekers Together.
Friday the 20th August 2021 brings the third of 8 consecutive Fridays were I release interviews that I have done with other professionally funny people where we talk about how they got their start in the industry they love.
This episode is with comedian of 27 years, Adam Bloom.
Adam Bloom is a whirl wind. His frenetic delivery makes me tired just watching it. He tells one of my favourite oner liners, it's about how to deal with pet hair.
Adam is one of Britain's most inventive comedians. He has performed sell-out solo shows at the ‘96, ’97, ’98, ’99, '01, '04 & '07 Edinburgh Festivals as well as performing a sell-out tour of Britain. He has also sold out theatres at festivals in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington & Cape Town. In July '13, Adam made his fifth appearance at ‘Just For Laughs’ in Montreal, including being part of 2004 'Just For Laughs Comedy Tour', playing to 42,000 people in 17 cities across Canada. He has also written three series of ‘The Problem with Adam Bloom’ for BBC Radio 4.
Friday the 13th August 2021 brings the second of 8 consecutive Fridays were I release interviews that I have done with other professionally funny people where we talk about how they got their start in the industry they love.
This episode is with comedian and all round good egg, Sally-Anne Hayward.
Sally-Anne once has the indignity of having to play my partner in a comedy sketch. She has not yet fully recovered.
We chat about all manor of things including how she started in the business, how is was great in the old days, why don't people know who Les Dawson is anymore and much, much more.
Sally-Anne is a fabulous comedian with over 20 years of experience. Amongst other things she has supported Sarah Millican on tour and produces the very funny Spit or Swallow Podcast with fellow comedian Lou Conran.
Welcome to the first episode of the second season of Get Yourself A Proper Job.
This season consists of 8 more episodes released once a week for the next 8 weeks.
This episode I talk to Andy Riley.
Andy is a comedy writer, illustrator and children's book author. His credits (along with co-writer Kevin Cecil) list like a Whose Who of British comedy, writing for the likes of Harry Enfield, Armstrong and Miller, Tracy Ullman, Little Britain, Veep, Matt Berry and many, many more.
We talk about his comedy beginnings, his love of comics, the competitive nature of comedy and how to start a comedy writing career. It's a lively chat, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope you do too.
In this episode, recorded at the end of 2019, I chat to Marisa Carnesky about working class beginnings, her being compelled to be a Show woman from the age of 10 and how hard it can be furrowing out a career when you can't be pigeon holed easily. We have a good rant about the "Good Old Days", when arts funding was more readily available and discussed how important it is to have diverse voices in the arts. We all talk about the catharsis of performance.
Marisa is an Olivier award winning show woman interested in the use of spectacle; fairground rides, magic illusions and grand ritual as a means of creating highly accessible provocative work, rooted in popular culture that promotes cultural and political discourses.
Find out more about here fascinating work here: Carnesky Productions
The podcast currently has 17 episodes available.