Interview: Mark Rough
Having started doing stand-up over twelve years ago, Mark Rough has played over three and a half thousand gigs (and counting). But the self-proclaimed Mackem Motormouth came to notoriety on the circuit after Rough was charged with fraud back in 2000 for an incident involving his Fnrr Fnrr comedy club in Sunderland. Andrew Dipper and […]
Interview: Craig Campbell
If you haven’t seen Craig Campbell perform before, I’d thoroughly recommend it. He’s a larger than life comedian, and, thankfully, his material is just as bold and funny as his persona. Oh, and he likes wood.
Extract #6 From Simon Donald’s ‘Him Off The Viz’
The progress of Viz was steady both in terms of our production and sales. Sales were particularly of interest due to the fact that they almost always seemed to go somewhere beyond our expectations. The initial print run of issue 1 famously sold out in a couple of hours.
Extract #5 From Simon Donald’s ‘Him Off The Viz’
Extract from ‘In the next two hours …’ The term ‘alternative comedy’ hadn’t reached Newcastle in 1981 when Andy Pop told us he had a new exciting venture. He’d seen an opportunity for getting crowds into the rather forlorn Jesmond Cinema, standing at the end of Sunbury Avenue, and in which I’d spent so much […]
Extract #4 From Simon Donald’s ‘Him Off The Viz’
Extract From ‘Mags To Riches.’ The Daily Pie and Arnold the Magazine had given Chris the taste for production of something bigger, with a number of pages and the exciting addition of staples. The means to produce a comedy magazine were almost in place. Chris and Jim had taken me to see bands play at […]
Extract #3 From Simon Donald’s ‘Him Off The Viz’
Extract From ‘Mags To Riches.’ It was a very exciting day when Chris told me that he and his friend Jim were going to produce a ‘proper’ comic, and they wanted me to do some work for it. Between the ages of about nine and thirteen I’d been obsessed with the idea of being a […]
