Mark Watson the Comedian

A bit of a scare there as the computer flirted with the idea of not letting me connect to the internet. I’m in the Badger (our tour vehicle, nicknamed for the all too loveable white stripes on its front) coming home from my long stint in Norwich. It’s been a productive period and I now feel I have a quite good show to tour with. The plan now is to advance to a very good show. There was an alternative idea mooted of regressing to a poor show, but in the end we took a team decision to go with the good.

I’ll continue – over the next few days/weeks/even years – to post a few blogs appealing for information, or asking people to do odd things on their phones, and other stuff which won’t make all that much sense or seem relevant or worthy of your time. I can only say that once you have seen the show, you’ll see why. I’m quite keen that the show builds an online ‘community’ of people who’ve seen it/are going to see it, and so extends beyond the natural boundaries of a stand-up show until something more long-lasting. That’s already happened with this blog and hey, look at us now. Which reminds me, if you’ve not signed up for the first Annual Watsonian Trip To Ibiza, the deadline is looming.

(Clearly, I’m joking about the trip to Ibiza.)

In the coming week – another charity appeal, the return of the Very Late Review, and some other nonsense.

Pleased with the show again tonight. If I were you I’d totally buy tickets to see it in London, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Edinburgh and a range of locations nationwide. And I literally do mean you should go for all of them. That’s how paranoid you should be about missing out.

Edinburgh shows will be announced, incidentally, soon. As well as a normal show I’m doing one of my Crazy Stunts. If I were you I would plan to be there around August 13-20.

It seems I’m very confident tonight about what I would do, in your position. Anyone want me to take over their life?

If I were you, also, I’d check out a comedian called Eric Lampaert. He’s supporting me in these Norwich gigs and he is the closest comedian to being me all over again. But more muscular. And different jokes. If you like me you’d like him.

That’s all my advice to you for now.

So, back to this business of the QR reader. Firstly what they are, then why I’m going on about them. I’m indebted to Katie for the below explanation:

Just in case anyone else doesn’t know, here’s an example of a QR (or quick response) code:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Wikipedia_mobile_en.svg

If you’ve got a fancy smartphone, you can download an app (like QR Reader for your iPhone, or QR Droid for those of us with Androids), take a photo of the QR code and it’ll take you to a web page, or something of that ilk. For example, if you were to take a photo of the above one using an aforementioned app, it’d take you to the front page of Wikipedia. They’re really very clever.

….very clever indeed. I’ve become increasingly interested in these barcodes which seem to be on every piece of promotional material, in the windows of half the buildings you walk past, and by now – for all I know – tattooed across people’s eyelids so you can find out their hobbies while they’re asleep. It’s fascinating that we now have shortcuts to information so efficient that we don’t even need to write out web addresses and type them into a computer. We can literally walk around zapping little squares of code with our phones, and receive vast amounts of knowledge, all in the space of a few seconds. There’s no doubt this is the sort of thing we were meant to be able to do in The Future. It suggests that perhaps we’re not so far from being able to hover, or set up cities on the Moon, after all.

So I’ve started to use this astounding, yet already commonplace, idea in my shows. As you walk in, you can scan a barcode (like the one above) from the screen. It takes you to a webpage from which you can vote on walk-in music, what colour T-shirt I’ll wear in the show, and so on. More importantly it supplies a phone number which you can use to divulge certain information about anyone you’re at the show with. This information is then, if possible, worked into the show. It’s audience interaction for the new decade. I realise the decade’s well underway now. But it takes me a while to have ideas.

You can get a QR reader, to join in with this malarkey, on most types of iPhone and BlackBerry and so forth. But actually, you don’t even need one to do some of the joining-in-with-the-show high jinks: you can just text from any phone whatsoever. It’s just that if you have the barcode reader, there’s quite a large range of extra stuff that you can do. But probably the most important bit is the leaking-information-about-other-people-in-the-audience. So if you’re coming to an imminent show, get in touch on Twitter, or via this email address: markwatsonspreview2012@gmail.com – and tell me stuff.

The purposes of all these shenanigans are
1. To mirror the show’s theme of how easily information is created/traded/changed in today’s world, and what it means for us;
2. To create a form of ‘audience interaction’ which doesn’t put anyone on the spot, but still produces bantering opportunities;
3. To mimic the general obsession of the world with gimmicks, distractions, technological jiggery-pokery;
and
4. Larks.

PS As for bringing strange food and drink to the show, I don’t really know quite why I’m asking for that. But the first time it was really funny and, well, this is just about still a comedy show.

Just did the new show for the first time. Not too bad. Soon, all this talk about QR readers and t shirts will make some sort of sense. There’ll be a proper blog tomorrow with further instructions on how to enjoy me (M Watson) in 2012. Thanks to anyone reading this who played along tonight.

I still mostly do jokes, by the way.

Just one thing today.

You might know, if you’ve seen me over the past few months, that I’ve making t shirts with a specific slogan on. I won’t mention it here as it’s slightly compromising, legally, but you know the one.

I’m wondering if anyone has- or can take- a photo of themselves wearing one of these shirts. Ideally out and about in public, but really anywhere. I have a couple of great ones already and I’m looking to build a collection.

Do pass this on to anyone who’s in possession of a t shirt. If you’ve yet to procure one but reckon you could wear one in an
amusing place, also let me know.

You can tweet pictures, or post links here, or transmit pics directly into my cerebral cortex.

Thank you