goodie and nick

Phew, what a couple of days we’ve just had! We did a gig at South Bay on Sunday night, then drove straight upto Goodie’s mam & dad’s in the midlands, 5 hours sleep then up and onto Shrewsbury for the press launch of this years panto at the Music Halls.

And what a special panto its going to be - It is the last one ever at this historic venue - The Shrewsbury Music Halls is going to be converted into an art gallery (or was it a museum?), and future pantos will take place in the brand new Theatre Severn

The Press Launch day was a lot of fun: We started by trying on our new costumes, then we rehearsed the launch show, then we went outside for photos with the press. After that we went back into the theatre and performed the launch show, followed by drinks and nibbles and interviews with press-type peoples.

After that we retired to the green room and had a read through of the script - I must say it looks like being an exceptional show with loads of laughs and great music too.

We also saw some of Shrewsbury on our annual ‘digs-hunt’, and what a beautiful town, can’t wait to get started!

We left Shrewsbury at 6pm and finally got back to Torquay about 10, We’re tired, but it was worth it.

I love Britains Got talent, I’ve watched every programme this year. But I do think its very unfair, and here’s why:

The general public’s vote is cleverly rigged to ensure the act the producers want to go through wins: Their favourite is always act no.8 in the semi-final, and is talked up by the judges. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

Semi-Final 1: Winner: Signature, act no.8
Semi-Final 2: Winner: Andrew Johnston, act no.8
Semi-Final 3: Winner: George Sampson, act no.8
Semi-Final 4: Winner: Faryl Smith, act no.8
Semi-Final 5: Winner: Escala, act no.8

Coincidence? I don’t think so, especially as the exact same thing happened last year. Don’t get me wrong, I think all of these acts are extremely good and I think George & Faryl are brilliant; But would Escala have got through if they were act no.3? Or if they hadn’t been helped by Simon Cowell? (He invited them onto the show after they performed at the X Factor wrap party last year)

Of course, not only one act goes through from each semi-final, but this is warped too as the judges get to choose between the second and third placed acts and sod who the general public voted for.

Also, the producers can screw up the semi-finalists act as well to make sure they don’t go through (They advised Bang On to perform to that rubbish dance track, and look what happened)

Plus there’s the awful buzzers - The act I feel sorry for the most this year are Visage - There act was halted by 3 buzzes even though Amanda claimed Simon had pressed hers, and so they didn’t get to perform their finale. And why? Because they had the audacity and ‘arrogance’ (according to Piers) to not do as they were told and change their act.

Yes, Britain’s Got Talent should be re-named “The Judges Got Arrogance”. What makes them think they have the right to decide who has talent and who doesn’t? Fair enough, the show is owned by Simon, but if we’re just going to see his choices triumph why bother with the charade of a public vote? To make us feel involved? No, obviously its to fund the prize money; And if we’re paying for it, we should be able to decide who wins it. Boo to you, Simon Cowell.

We went and did an audition for Qdos Entertainment yesterday in Luton, it was good fun! The auditioning panel was like a Who’s Who of British entertainment with Paul Elliot, Michael Harrison, Jonathon Kylie and John Conway plus Nigel & Tim from TED.

We did a few gags that we wrote for last years panto plus a condensed version of our shopping song, they were all very friendly so I hope they liked us!

It was also great to catch up with Herbie, Flash & Jacks, Verity Rae and Roberts & Ashcroft who were also auditioning. We also met Harris & Day, who we’ve heard good things about.

Also on the panto front, We’re having a meeting with John Spillers in a couple of weeks as we may be working for him at Christmas time.

And now we’ve got three days off, Woo-Hoo!

…That we haven’t written anything here in a while, so thought I better stick something down!

We’ve been all over the shop since we last wrote - Essex, the North-east and Wales, plus our normal more local shows. We’ve met lots of interesting people and been to some interesting venues!

What’s surprising us this year is how many places don’t allow us to sell our DVDs and stuff, and I don’t really know why. My cynical brain tells me that these holiday companies are greedy, and don’t want their captive audience’s money going anywhere but in their tills: But I’m sure there’s a better reason than that!

I think a better approach would be what Butlins do: They allow acts to sell merchandise but take 25% of the takings - Everyone’s a winner! Especially when they have Same Difference, Chico or other big names -they’ll be quids in!!!

Anyway, Rant over, Hope you are all well - Stay in touch!

We’ve started our summer season shows; Last week we were at Vauxhall Holiday Park in Yarmouth, which was great. Then on Thursday we did Trelawne Manor - It was quiet, but great. Then last night we did South Bay, which was, er, not so great! Nobody seemed to get anything, we tried all sorts but they just didn’t like it. Oh well.

We’ve started doing our new Celebrity Song, its not quite right just yet but its been going pretty well.

Update: Added Filthy Jokes and a cartoon of the day in the members area

There’s been some updates on our website - Registered users can now Instant Message each other, and there’s a forum too - wowee!

Yes, we’ve got a group on Facebook and we’re tremendously excited about it. If you are a hopeless social networking twerp please do come on over and join us - We’ve got 1,50.000 members so far, wowee! And you could be another one!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21091260391

I’ve just added a diary page to the site - You’ll see a link up there at the top of the page. You have to be registered to view it, after all we don’t want any Tom, Dick or Hairy seeing what we’re up to!

Goodie’s been doing his brilliant acting in the background of “Casualty” this week, so keep your eyes peeled if you’re a fan of that nonsense!

We are up to not a great deal actually. Goodie is currently on holiday in Vegas, and Nick is having an extended birthday celebration.

We finished panto up in Billingham on 6th Jan; it was great fun and everybody involved was really nice. Since then we’ve built this new website, although there’s loads still to do. Nick has been editing the panto video, not quite finished yet!

Nick also did 4 days work on “Wire in the blood” starring Robson Green, doing his brilliant acting as a psychologist, we’ll let you know when its coming on the telly.

We are also planning 2 new routines for our live show. One is a medley of parody songs all about celebrities, and the other is a choirboy routine. The props are currently being built and we hope to be doing them for our summer gigs

Hi Everyone and welcome to our new bloggy bit. This is where we’ll put any news that isn’t really news etc…!