Richard Bacon hoping for laughs
On Thursday, 5 live's Richard Bacon will be swapping one mic for another and performing his first ever stand-up comedy routine at . He has been handed a 10 minute slot at the end of Reginald D Hunter's gig at the city's Udderbelly Theatre. 10 minutes that's sure to feel like 10 days and all broadcast live on-air. Gulp.
Tom Young, Interactive Producer on Richard's show will be following his journey and here describes what lies ahead:
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Talk about a baptism of fire. It's a real race against time
with only a few days up in
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Along with the rest of his 5 live production team, I'll be following Richard in the build-up to the event and filming every second of the gig itself. There's sure to be some nerves, maybe some tears and at least a couple of laughs. It all gets going on Wednesday at 10.30pm live from the Pleasance Courtyard.
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You can keep up to date with his progress on this blog, listen to the programme live or on iPlayer as well as following him at where you can see 140 character gems such as this:
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-Doing that whole stand up writing thing again. Turns out it's not easy. And I keep getting distracted. By things like Twitter.
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-Fact of the day. If you put the ENTIRE population of
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For more information on Reginald D Hunter's show check
In the meantime, check out his appearance on Â鶹Éç News 24 last week...yes, that's right, he's wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
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Comment number 1.
At 27th Aug 2009, The Great Gildersleeve wrote:He's wearing shorts and a T-shirt and your point is?
I don't get why this is being trailed as much as it is...but that's just me perhaps!
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Comment number 2.
At 27th Aug 2009, Curmy wrote:I listened to Richard Bacon last night. He talked about himself for 2 and a half hours ! The jokes he cracked to the passing crowd went down like a lead balloon .
This whole exercise in self promotion is being completely over hyped .
The only person who thinks Richard is funny is himself !
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Comment number 3.
At 27th Aug 2009, unluckynotstupid wrote:Comedy is subjective and he may be lucky - personally I don't find Richard's stock-in-trade of Twitter, sport and interesting facts delivered in an over-enthusiastic tone at all amusing - but then I am an intelligent person and expect more from 5live.
It reminds me of the great Stewart Lee's joke about Radio 4 comedy shows substituting rhythm and tone for content and wit. Suspect that might be Richard's approach, but I will enjoy the excrutiating experience nevertheless.
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Comment number 4.
At 27th Aug 2009, unluckynotstupid wrote:They say when your taxi-driver talks about his share portfolio, the market's about to crash...I strongly suggest the Â鶹Éç cuts its comedy budget.
Isn't Richard related to some bigwig at the beeb?
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Comment number 5.
At 28th Aug 2009, neonderek02000 wrote:I thought his routine was very lame and surprised the professional comedians were being so easy on him. It would be an okay first attempt of Stand Up comedy if he was a complete amateur, but the guy has worked professionally in the media for a long time and I expected better, because he is a very witty Radio Presenter. I guess he is more witty than funny.
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Comment number 6.
At 28th Aug 2009, The Great Gildersleeve wrote:I wouldn't get up and attempt stand up comedy but it was poor, the programme was indulgent. Richard kept insisting he thought his material was fine/ok. So when some neagtive comments did get through they were not really registering. The Special Half-Hour is similar in quality(?)so there's a problem already.
Not great radio...considering the hype.
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Comment number 7.
At 2nd Sep 2009, zootho wrote:I was in the audience and it was definitely the low point of my week in Edinburgh. Not bad, just boring. We had a great hour with Reggie Hunter but all we could talk about afterwards was how dreadful Bacon was. He couldn't have emptied the venue faster if it had been on fire.
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