CMB'S COMEDY FESTIVAL RECOMMENDATIONS + NEW GLASGOW DATES x
Teaming up with Josie Long for some Work-In-Progress tag-team shows! 🤝
Happy springtime to the various CMB-Keepers and As You Werewolves of the newsletter. The bees are singing, the flowers are buzzing, and the birds are spewing pollen from their stamen. We have commando crawled through the broken glass of winter once more, only to find ourselves in the tepid muddy waters of March and its lousy Smarch weather.
March means one thing to any Scottish comedian: the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Comedians from all over the world, as well as Paisley, come to Glasgow to put on a solo show or a podcast or a something else and see how the drunkest people in the world feel about it. It’s often either a victory lap for your Fringe show last year, or a first-go of your Fringe show from next year, and it’s thrilling to behold. Gasp in horror as the best comedians from all over the world flock to Glasgow, where most of the local acts will choose instead to go see the same people they gig with the rest of the year, or, indeed, nobody at all.
Due to most Scottish comedians having skin so thin that novice pencillers can use their epidermis as tracing paper, a lot of acts won’t publicly do festival recommendations because they don’t want to be confronted by a megalomaniac narcissist in a green room about why they weren’t included in a Substack wrap-up. I, however, will brave this future social indignity in order to slyly promote my own shows.
As well as the Here Comes The Guillotine: Live! show with Frankie Boyle and Susie McCabe at the Armadillo on March 18th, I’m doing a stand-up celebration of Alisdair Gray’s work on March 23rd alongside Ashley Storrie and Alan Bissett at the Oran Mor. We did a live HCTG podcast in Aberdeen and it was absolutely brilliant, and we did a scratch-night version of the Gray Day show last week and it was absolutely brilliant too, so I’m really excited to bring them to the festival near the end of the month.
Before I get to the meat of the mail, I’m also doing four work-in-progress solo shows at Drygate and the Flying Duck, which sold out a few months ago. I’m really excited to announce that If you’re wanting to see work-in-progress stuff, but missed out, that I’m teaming up with one of my FAVOURITE COMEDIANS IN THE WORLD (none other than Josie Long!) to do a series of work-in-progress two-for-the-price-of-one double-headers in the Southside of Glasgow at the incredible Rum Shack! These shows are going to be great, and affordable, and ramshackle in the best way possible. I seen Josie recently at Material Girl in Glasgow and she was on fire! These gigs are going to be great.
GLASGOW WORK-IN-PROGRESS SHOWS with CHRISTOPHER MACARTHUR-BOYD and JOSIE LONG at THE RUM SHACK
APRIL 28th 2025
MAY 14th 2025
JUNE 18th 2025
JULY 15th 2025
Josie put together a bunch of line-ups at Rum Shack to raise money for Palestinian Aid last year and it’s a brilliant place to perform and watch stand-up.
Also, I’m doing some work-in-progress shows at Monkey Barrel Comedy in the next few months too, so feel free to come and see me there before the fringe kicks off and you won’t be able to move on the Royal Mile for jugglers, flyerers, and acting students from Leamington Spa.
WORK IN PROGRESS SHOWS IN EDINBURGH AT MONKEY BARREL
MARCH 8th 2025
MAY 10th 2025
JULY 13th 2025
But finally, what we’ve all been waiting for:
A NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TWELVE BRILLIANT SHOWS TO GO SEE AT THE GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL 2025 (NOT INCLUDING WORK IN PROGRESS SHOWS OR PODCASTS OR COMPILATION SHOWS OR SKETCH COMEDY OR IMPROV OR SHOWS THAT HAVE ALREADY SOLD OUT)
SUSIE MCCABE - BEST BEHAVIOUR
KING’S THEATRE
FRIDAY 28th MARCH + SATURDAY 29th MARCH
If you’re a Guilloteen as well as a CMB x As You Werewolf, you’ll want to hear Susie talk about the fallout from her heart attack last year. I’ve seen her last few solo shows (Merchant of Menace and Femme Fatality were both absolutely banging) so you’d be daft to miss this. Rambunctious direct gut-punching stand-up from a thunder lesbian that will knock you on your arse.
MARJOLEIN ROBERTSON - O
ORAN MOR
WEDNESDAY 19th MARCH
I seen this show at the fringe last year, and if you want to see some gruesome unconventional comedy that will change the way you feel about bodily autonomy and bias in medicine then boy, do I have the show for you! Several people have fainted during this show, legitimately, as it is bloody and uncompromising and wrong-footing and brilliant. I’m still thinking about parts of it six months later.
DARREN CONNELL - MY NAME IS DARREN CONNELL AND THIS IS MY SELF-TAPE
KING’S THEATRE
THURSDAY 27th MARCH
Darren is the funniest natural stand-up in Scotland, and everybody on the circuit knows it. He has bits that make me shake with laughter like I’m trapped inside a B&Q paint mixer. He’s a sensitive soul, and he’s going to take the Kings and make it his own. The only comedian to make me cry with laughter twice, with the same routine, on two separate occasions. This is going to be mental.
FERN BRADY - I GAVE YOU MILK TO DRINK
KING’S THEATRE
SUNDAY 23rd MARCH
I took a lassie to The Stand to see Fern in like, 2015, and she done a bit about the programme Embarrassing Bodies that made me spit beer all over the girl I had brought, and the couple sitting next to us. It was like SeaWorld or something. Insanely funny. Fern is completely herself - the autistic bikini queen, and this is the last date of her UK tour before she ships off to America to dodge gunfire and actual fire. Bon voyage! (Also, Fern is doing a live podcast with Alison Spittle, Amanda Dwyer and Susan Riddle called Material Girl that will be well worth a watch.)
ROSCO MCCLELLAND - SUDDEN DEATH
ORAN MOR
SUNDAY 30th MARCH
I hate this guy. I typed out his name, show, venue and date, and then hyperlinked it, entirely by accident. My computer won’t let me delete it, for some reason. Go, or don’t.
GARETH MUTCH - MODERN MAN
THE STAND COMEDY CLUB
SATURDAY 29th MARCH
Gary Munch is an absolutely brilliant comedian from Livingston, who has always been brilliant but has really came into his own over the last few years. Every time I see him, he sings “C-M-B” to the tune of “T-N-T” by AC/DC and it makes me smile like a character from the film Smile. If you like big interactive stand-up, definitely go see him.
MICKY OVERMAN - HOLD ON
THE STAND COMEDY CLUB
THURSDAY 13th MARCH
Micky has a Dutch directness that is frankly difficult to bear. She said something to me on her podcast Thank F*ck For That (their apostrophe, not mine) about my pinky finger that I got stuck in an escalator as a child at my cousin’s birthday party that will truly stay with me for the rest of my life. She dresses sharp, she writes her jokes sharp, and she honestly scares me. Very funny.
MARC JENNINGS - MARC’SISM
ST LUKE’S
MONDAY 24th MARCH
Marc is putting his entire ass into this new show before he takes it on a tour of the U.K. and Ireland, and I’m looking forwards to seeing it. The thing about his podcast Some Laugh is that it isn’t all laugh; it’s only some laugh. But the thing about his show Marc’sism, is that it is All Laugh. Also, St Luke’s is a nice place to see stand-up, I think!
GRACE JARVIS - JUST BECAUSE I’M CRYING DOESN’T MEAN I’M NOT HAVING A NICE TIME
DRYGATE
SUNDAY 16th MARCH
Very funny and very sad stand-up from my favourite person in the world. I saw a work-in-progress version of this at Top Secret Comedy in London and it was brilliant. Definitely go see this show before she takes it to Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane and Edinburgh and god knows where else.
JOE KENT-WALTERS IS: FRANKIE MONROE: LIVE!!!
THE STAND
WEDNESDAY 19th MARCH
I seen this in Edinburgh last year, almost just to get out of the rain and sit down for a bit, and it was honestly one of the best things I’ve ever seen. Funny and playful and drunk and frightening and hellish. In the grand tradition of oddballery that produced Mighty Boosh and the League of Gentlemen. I really think you should see this, if you haven’t seen it.
JIN HAO LI - SWIMMING IN A SUBMARINE
THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS
FRIDAY 21st MARCH
I seen Jin Hao do an open mic in the function room of The Doublet pub in Glasgow, and I was like, this guy is going to be a big star. Twelve months later, he’s selling out the Soho Theatre and doing TV stuff. A very nice polite young man, and I’ve seen this show, and it was lovely. Really good material about spiders and dreams and rapping and being in the army.
STUART MCPHERSON - HORSE
THE STAND
SATURDAY 22nd MARCH
I seen a very early version of this when it was a WIP last year, and it was sensational then. Now Stu McPherson (Goo McPerson, as nobody calls him) is doing his debut tour, and this show is the big jewel of it. There’s a really good routine about growing up in Fife that made me laugh like a drain full of blood and pee. Check it out! Me and Stu were born less than 24 hours apart from each other, which makes us brothers.
So there you go! There’s loads of great stuff at the festival, and I recommend keeping your eye out for local shows by new comedian in small venues, especially if you see names like Kathleen Hughes, Dean T Bierne, Jack Brookmyre, Jack Traynor, Ayo Adenekan, Sarah Bradley, Paddy Linton, Alan Jay, Ifrah Qureshi, Maria Mcaveety, Isa Bonachera, and honestly loads of other new good folk who are doing great interesting stuff. Also, obviously check out WIPs from the usual legends like Liam Withnail, Tamsyn Kelly, Stephen Buchanan, Amy Matthews, Amanda Dwyer, Susan Riddell, Amelia Bayler, Liam Farrelly, and everybody else. Just go see stuff!
I’ll be announcing news about my new special which is coming out in the next few months, as well as loads of work-in-progress dates in Glasgow, as well as (!!!) details about my Edinburgh fringe show and upcoming tour so if you’re a subscriber then don’t click unsubscribe, and if you’re not a subscriber then smash that subscribe button to be the first to know.
Cheers,
CMB x As You Were
P.S. If you want to trade / battle with me on Pokémon TGC Pocket, then my friend code is 3114-1202-2866-6313. Fair warning: my Serperior / Celebi EX deck is ferocious. (If you want to hear me go absolutely tonto with video game chat about Pokémon TGC Pocket and Unavowed, check out the Video Game Chronicle podcast I guested on with the great Scottish games journalists Jordan Middler and Chris Scullion.)
P.P.S. My friend Mike Rice has a new special called Nasty Character out on YouTube that I feature in a very small way as his opening act on the night, and as the voice who introduces him. Check that out at the nearest of opportunities. He is truly one of the most evil men in the world, and when the Lord’s light finally falls upon him, I will be smiling and nodding as he is cast into the pits. But at the same time, he is very funny and you should watch Nasty Character to fully understand God’s rage.
P.P.P.S. Shoutout to the amazing Lewis Dimmock of LD Fine Art for the painting of me, Frankie and Susie at the top of the newsletter. Check Lewis out for all your fine art needs.