The Post-Nearly Man
Hot news of two triumphant sort-ofs.
A Return to Live Comedy (sort of)
I'll probably regret this but... I have a one-hour show planned for 2024. I'm BACK, baby!
13th March (9pm), Peaks Bar at Drygate, Glasgow. Tickets.
Here’s the blurb from the festival guide:
Robert Wringham is recording an audiobook. Some of it will be done properly in a studio (he's not stupid) but some will be done CREATIVELY in front of an audience. Expect digressions, side-mumbles, explanations, confessions, questions for YOU madam, reflections and regretsies. It's a whole new format: an audiobook with annotations. Come! Lend your enthusiastic or nonplussed audience noises to an audiobook recording like no other.
Wringham's work has been described as "mini masterpieces" by Stewart Lee, "devilishly clever" by Arnold Brown, and "side-splitting" by the British Comedy Guide.
As you can see, I’ve finally come up with a format to cheat at stand-up. If things go well, I’ll tell stories on top of stories using the comic gift of free association. If things go badly, I’ll just read non-stop from A Loose Egg and Stern Plastic Owl, both of which are funny and road-tested.
It would be good to pack the place with people who already know and love me. Or, y’know, just to pack the place full-stop. If you happen to live in Glasgow or you want to visit our stinking brewery quarter, get your super-cheap tickets here. We can probably all get drunk together after the show too: this is literally a piss-up in a brewery. What could possibly go wrong?
A Literary Prize! (sort of)
Rub-A-Dub-Dub is yet to be recognised by a literary prize. But its cover has been!
Yes, the Saltire Society have shortlisted my novel for Book Cover of the Year at Scotland’s National Book Awards.
I think that’s hilarious.
Mac’s getting all the credit as the artist, as is only right. I mean, the whole thing was my idea but whatever.
The day I found out about the National Book Awards was the very last day of the deadline. I hopped on a train to personally deliver two submissions: Fiction Book of the Year (for me) and Best Book Cover (for Mac).
I’d checked their opening hours but arrived breathlessly in Edinburgh to find their door locked and bolted. So I sat there on the steps, a pile of dog muck on the cobbles, contemplating the metaphor. I was a struggling writer quite literally locked out of the citadels of culture.
What had I been thinking? The Saltire Society? The National Book Awards? I was such an idiot. The dog muck represented my hubris.
Where was everyone? The door bore no note. Nobody was answering the phone.
A tour group walked by, the guide pointing out the offices of Canongate Books next door. “They publish Nick Cave from the Bad Seeds!” he said.
A man in a necktie came by and asked what was up. “Something about a literary prize” I mumbled. “Canongate will take it for you,” he said kindly, and we left my box with the publishing office. Evidently, he made good on his promise to pass them on because we’re on the shortlist. Thanks, Mr Canongate! I liked your tie!
Get the novel that everyone (by which I mean Scottish book cover designers) is talking about here.
Here’s a picture of my box of books on the steps outside the Saltire Society that day. If you look closely, you can see the dog muck I mentioned:
Thanks everyone. I love you and I want to marry you.
Robert Wringham
www.wringham.co.uk
PS: New Escapologist Issue 15 goes to the printers on Monday. You can order a copy here.