It is prudent at this juncture...

... to point out the following fact.

"The Penny Dreadfuls" can be anagrammised thus:

Fleshy, departed nun.

Stepladder! Funny, eh?

Spy left unhardened.

Hunt dead. Fry Spleen.


Discuss!

winter treats

It's nearly December, which means not one but two Scottish gigs: it's not even slightly grim up north.

The first is a guest slot on Firday 1st December in the STaG Night Festival in Glasgow, at Gillmore Hill G12. The show starts at 7.30pm and tickets cost tickets £8 (£6 concessions) or £15 for a Festival Pass. To book, call 0141 330 5522 or email boxoffice@gilmorehillg12.co.uk with your name and number of tickets.

The second is in St. Andews on the 12th December at the Byre Theatre - all us, just us, no-one else but us, pure undiluted Faversham. The doors open at 8pm for a 9pm start and tickets cost £6 (£3 concessions). To book, call 01334 475000 or go online at the Byre's website.

Put that in your festive pipe and smoke it.*

*But not in a pub or public building in Scotland.

"As he crept closer to the gyrating cultists, Faversham began to make out the words of the chant. 'Update! Update! Update!..."

Well Faver-chums, it has been a very exciting couple of weeks for the Brothers(and Sister) Dreadful. Those of you with eagle eyes, and detective brains, may have been able to piece some of it together from our listings, but here, at last, is the inside scoop. Last week saw us both take to the stage at our largest ever gig, the BBC London Children in Need show at the Shepherd's Bush Empire (see below) and record our first ever piece for TV.

Shepherds Bush was great fun, with a smashing line-up including such comedic heavy weights as Al Murray, Tim Vine and the Oh-so-lovely and oh-so-tiddly-wee Lucy Porter. Gratifyingly we managed to get away without looking balls in such illustrious company, by the simple trick of not being balls. Backstage was like something out of Glastonbury before it got all commercial. We supped upon the finest Coca-cola, and popped more cocktail sausages than Henry VIII on pork-based crack. Meanwhile Al Murray and Lucy Porter were watching Autumnwatch while Shappi Khorsandi had to listen to a blow-by-blow account of Thom's greatest ever bowling spell. (For those interested he took 7-31 from the pavilion end at Kilgooley Secondary school on July 14th 1999.) The whole night was literally hewn from pure rock. Onstage we went over pretty well, and a good time was had by all.

The next day we were summoned from our beds at 6.15, a full twenty-four hours earlier than we usually get up, and driven to Teddington Studios in West London, in our own posh BBC motor-ma-tron-o-bile. By 8.30 we were in Make-up and by 9 the camera was turning over to capture the single most momentous event in television since Emu bit that guy's cock. I can't hope to fully describe the emotions of that day, as I spent most of it playing Football Manager 2007 in the Cafeteria and eyeing up the two cute girls in charge of makeup. That said, when I did get on set and recorded my little piece, It was quite overwhelming to see how awed and humbled the crew were. It transpires that am literally electrifying on screen, and my part had to be reduced a little, because I was just out-acting everyone else, which was awkward.
The crew were uniformly lovely people who went about their jobs, of satisfying our whims, with good grace and striking professionalism; and the make-up girls were cute.

Bully for industry!

Children In Need at the Shepherds Bush Empire

BBC London's night of comedy for Children In Need was fantastic: a great line-up of some of our personal comedy heroes, plus sausage rolls in the dressing room. It really doesn't get better.



Massive thanks to all involved, especially Dave (lights) and Oli (sound) for coping with my technical demands.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we throw open a debate! Who has played the greatest Holmes of all?



Basil Rathbone
Peter Cushing
Jeremy Brett
Clive Merrison
Richard Roxburgh
Peter Cook
Brent Spiner
Rupert Everett


View Results


Make your own poll

Sunday Special






The Penny Dreadfuls shall be headlining this Sunday's wonderful Sunday Special gig at up the creek, 302 creek road, greenwich, london town, SE10 9SW, with a smattering of delightful Victorian sketches...

To get there, take the greenwich overground or cutty sark on the docklands light railway. Here is a handy map.

TIME:
doors 7pm, first act 7.30pm
TICKETS: £5/3 conc.

HOW TO BOOK TICKETS: call 0208 858 4581 (leave your number, name of show and number of bookings and a member of staff will call you back)
or complete the online booking form.

Mark Watson will MC, Tim Key promises to prat about, the delightful american morgan murphy also features, and most excitingly, a *top secret special guest opening act*.... Do peruse their lovely website.

What a marvellous amount of fun. Do come along...

aeneas faversham christmas spectacular

Eagle-eyed vistors will have noticed the string of new show dates appearing in the side-bar. However, if you do indeed have the eyes of an eagle you may be about to sweep down on a vole from high atop a thermal current. So - in brief - more Faversham!

We are proud to announce the feverishly festive Aeneas Faversham Christmas Spectacular on SATURDAY 16th and SUNDAY 17th December at The Canal Cafe. The nearest tube station is Warwick Avenue (on the Bakerloo Line) and the nearest blimp stand is Hyde Park.

Tickets cost a tremendously reasonable £5 (£4 concessions) plus £1 Canal Cafe membership fee. You can book tickets in person at the venue from 2pm every day or by emailing mail@canalcafetheatre.com with your name, the show name and number of tickets. They even have one of those new fangled electric telephones: 020 7289 6054.

We do hope to see you. Why not take a quill and put a note in your diary now? Or, better still, get one of the footmen to do it?

Here's hoping people bother reading this...

Your Majesty, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I crave a boon. There has been much debate of late between myself and David as to who is the greatest Sherlock Holmes. Do not misunderstand me, there is no debate as to who would be better should the two of us don his well worn deerstalker. Dave is clearly cut from a Lestrade-like cloth, where as I would be the greatest Holmes of all. No; we merely seek to settle on the greatest Holmes thus far, and find ourselves at an impasse. We throw it open therefore to our online mega-buddies. Who is the greatest Holmes of them all? Rathbone? Cushing? Brett? Let the people decide.