I’ve finally decided to get into Gipsy Kings. I’ve loved Gipsy Kings since I was about six years old, but only in a sort of “That live album by Gipsy Kings we used to listen to in the car is an absolute classic” kind of a way. I’ve never listened to any of Gipsy Kings’ studio albums, and I’ve decided it’s time, and holy heck, they’re fantastic. The only problem with getting into a band like Gipsy Kings, ie. a band that sounds like it should have a “the” at the start of its name but actually doesn’t, is that you end up having to navigate the moral quandary of whether or not to add a “the.”

As you can see, my current position on the matter is to honour the band’s original intentions and not include a “the,” and to simply keep repeating their name, without a “the,” often enough for people to realise I’m doing it on purpose and to start to question their own assumption that there is a “the” at the start of the band name. (Do not reply to this pointing out that they have several compilation albums called “The Best Of The Gipsy Kings,” compilation albums are not canon and are named by people who don’t know what they’re talking about).

The problem is that you really run the risk of seeming pretentious, but look, guys, until I started getting into Gipsy Kings this week, I didn’t even know there wasn’t a “the” in the title. I was saying “the Gipsy Kings” just like the rest of you. I, too, was in the habit of making small talk at the barbecue with handy phrases like “It’s days like this that make you want to crank up the Gipsy Kings and just party” or “Cost-of-living crisis? Tell me about it. It makes you hanker for the good old days of the Gipsy Kings.” I’ve just passed through the veil now, and I can’t go back. Join me. They’re self-titled 1987 album is an absolute hoot. (See also – Eurythmics, Buggles and Eagles. There is a state of knowing that it is not possible to walk back from).

Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with the newsletter this week. A few weeks back I used this newsletter to announce the return of Eggbox, mine and Miranda’s showcase for the scripted comedy community. Since then, Richard Herring (who I hate, remember) recommended this newsletter and then hundreds of new people subscribed to it, so I guess I’ll recap on what Eggbox is.

Miranda and I are in the scripted comedy business. We’ve both had some success on the radio. We both make our own short films. We’re both trying to write and develop and pitch our TV and feature film ideas. We enjoy it and are proud of the work we’re doing, but it can be an isolating business, and a long old slog. We loved the sense of community and camaraderie that we found at comedy film nights like Mister Tibbs and the Paddock. I loved an old night that Soho Theatre used to put on called The Comedy Project, where new scripts would be read out to a live audience – that night was invaluable to me as a writer, and helped me get a few old ideas into active development and even production. It doesn’t exist any more, and we decided to take what I loved about it and combine it with what we loved about those other film nights and the communities they nurtured and supported, and build our own thing.

So Eggbox is a live night that combines screenings of amazing short films by wonderful filmmakers with live readings of new scripts by brilliant writers. We try to engender a spirit of community around it, and have the scripts read out by some of the actors from the films being screened, to show what a vibrant and collaborative scene it can be. Eventually I’d love it if some of the work-in-progress scripts read out became films premiered and screened at future versions of the night, and it eventually becomes a self-sustaining model to incubate and develop amazing scripted comedy work. We launched it just before Christmas last year with a sold-out show at King’s Place, and it’s coming back to the Pleasance on the 1st of October (to the main house, so there’s a lot of tickets to sell, eek).

So, to speed those tickets on their way, this week I’m going to give a sneak peek at the line-up and let you know what’s in store!

PREMIERES & EXCLUSIVES:

Perhaps the big “headline draws” of Eggbox so far have been the short films we’ve screened which have been either premieres or exclusive screenings that can’t currently be seen online anywhere. This time, those include:

• The world premiere of mine and Miranda’s latest short, Make Your Life Good Again, a makeover show in which an unstoppable force meets an immovable object starring Christian Brighty, Sooz Kempner and myself. Co-written by me and Miranda and directed by Miranda.
• Sam Pilbeam’s dark gothic horror gastro-comedy The Sin Eater, starring the irrepressible talents of the Lovely Boys – Mikey Bligh-Smith and the recently crowned Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer Joe Kent-Walters. Written and directed by Sam Pilbeam.
• Christina Riggs and Kyle Shephard’s documentary parody Closer Look, whose full title I will withhold for fear of spoiling its delightfully ridiculous premise. It has an incredible lead performance from Arabella Weir, and is written by Christina and directed by Kyle.
• The excellent comedy drama Alienated, written by Aruhan Galieva and Jac Clinch and directed by Benjamin Adnams, and boasting one of the most unnervingly original visual metaphors for feeling like you don’t belong since Everything Everywhere All At Once’s everything bagel.
• An exclusive premiere of a brand new sketch from Sam O’Leary and Tom Lawrinson, who are carving out a niche as simply some of the best makers of online comedy out there at the moment. I love their work and am so proud that we get to share one of their slices of nonsense as an exclusive before the rest of the world sees it.

OTHER SCREENINGS:

Alongside the exclusives and premieres, we have screenings of some of our other favourite shorts we’ve found online, from:

• Luke McQueen
• Jazz Emu
• Alex Goddard
• Alison Thea-Skot and Kat Bond
• Ada Player and Bron Waugh

LIVE SCRIPT READS:

And alongside these screenings we’ll be staging live readings of brand new scripts. This time we’ve got:

• Winkies by Miranda Holms, a short film about the collapse of dating apps and the boom for in-person dating events. This is a really lovely short with, I have a funny feeling, a really exciting future ahead of it.
• Off The Clock by Cody Dahler, one of the BBC Studios Staff Writers for 2023-24. The BBC have been crying out for single-location classic sitcoms, and I think this new script of Cody’s, about the culture of post-work drinks, has a really rich setting and some wonderful characters. I’m excited to see them come to life!
• The Last One You’d Expect by me! This was originally written to be an Only Murders In The Building-style serialised TV murder mystery, and nearly had a bit of success in that landscape. However, after a slight change of direction, I’m now thinking of reconfiguring it as a feature film, as it feels like it tells one complete story rather than necessarily being something that could fuel multiple series. But I may be wrong! Either way, hearing it read out loud and getting a sense of where the laughs are will be really helpful for my figuring out what its future should be.

The cast of the live script reads includes several actors featuring in the shorts we’re screening, as well as special guests Katie Norris, Sunil Patel and Laurie Luxe.

Yes, it IS an absolutely stacked line-up. Yes, it IS a logistical nightmare. No, it WON’T be three hours long, because Miranda and I are actually very good at curating the pace of this sort of thing, and not all components are the same length. What can I say, we spoil you.

Tickets are available here and I would absolutely love it if we had a nice busy crowd for the return of this night – the first one was such a joy and I was so proud of it, and I want it to keep going. The tickets are only £7, and I’d love to see lots of you there!

A Cool New Thing In Comedy – Christian Brighty and Amy Greaves’ excellent new Regency sitcom, The Many Wrongs Of Lord Christian Brighty, is out now and is superb. I’m so proud of them. Episode 1 was an absolute hoot, and Episode 2 is out this Saturday and guest stars me as a smuggler who I based on Dick Dastardly. It was so fun and you’re gonna love it.

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – I visited my family in Wales this weekend and introduced them to Inside No. 9 as they’d never seen it, and started with A Quiet Night In. Watching them watch the scene with the dog for the first time was an absolute delight, and confirmed that that scene is one of the best physical comedy sequences of all time.

Book Of The Week – I’m just finishing up Philosophy & Life by A.C. Grayling. Still haven’t figured out the meaning of life, soz. Have learned a lot about how to not stress about unnecessary shit, though. Just chill out, guys.

Film Of The Week – The Beach. Watched this on iPlayer cos I’d just finished the book and it’s supposed to be a classic. It’s rubbish! Leo spends the entire film literally screaming things like “OH, GREAT! JUST GREAT!” or “YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! AND THAT’S JUST THE START OF IT!” I can’t believe this was made by the same writing-directing duo as Trainspotting, and after Trainspotting. They don’t even have the excuse of not knowing how to make a good film yet. I thought it was truly shit.

Album Of The Week – Gipsy Kings by Gipsy Kings, obvs. Next.

That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoyed the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d hugely appreciate it. Take care of yourselves until next time, and all the best,

Joz xx

PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.

PPS I found a feather on my egg and made a sketch about finding a feather on your egg. So if you just clicked the Ko-Fi link above to send a kind donation, just comfort yourself with the knowledge that you’re helping to fund gold like this:

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