I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I do realise how hollow that sounds when it's simultaneously addressed to three thousand people, but the world's got enough joy in it for at least a few hundred of us to be fairly happy for some of 2009.

Also, my website signup (markwatsonthecomedian.com) is now working properly, so you can sign up to my all-new-just-about-to-happen Occasional Newsletter just by going to the site. You no longer need to worry about sending me your email address. You can just put it straight in and sit back and receive updates for the rest of your natural life. Do it!

And I hope your year will pan out nicely. Mine's started all right.

M

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So, basically, through my website (markwatsonthecomedian.com) my agents are going to start a proper mailing list which sends out a newsletter about my gigs and so forth. A bit like this, but classier and not dependent upon the whim of MySpace. I will still use MySpace as well, but they will be more organised about it than I am.

If you'd like to be on such a mailing list, please send me your email address (as a personal message) and I will put it into our database and now and again you will receive news. Oh, you know how a mailing list works.

It should go without saying, but your email address will not be given to anyone else, as I am not a business, just a man. So you will not get any emails offering you a bigger cock or saying that you qualify for £3 million if you sign a series of mis-spelt documents.

If you don't want to do this, that is quite fine. Indeed if everyone DOES do it, I will receive around 1500 emails and will have created a monster.

Thank you!

Mark

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Here are my tour dates for next Winter and Spring. This is a frighteningly extensive tour.  It'll be a hybrid of my Edinburgh show (All The Thoughts I've Had Since I Was Born), a few 'old favourite' jokes, some brand new ones, some off-the-cuff bits, and a bit of confused rambling about whichever town I was in the night before.

We've tried to include quite a few places that often come up in 'why don't you ever come to...?' conversations. Even a couple suggested by people on Facebook. I am also revisiting some of my favourite venues. After this, I will tour Australia and New Zealand. Then have a short break before continuing with the rest of my life.

I hope you can come to one, some or even all fifty-odd of these shows.
Actually don't come to all of them. The magic would be shattered.

You should be able to get tickets direct from the venues for most of these shows.

The last thing to say is that, if you're thinking 'this is all very nice, but I'm not in Britain; I'm in Perth, Western Australia', you can see me all next week at the Playhouse.

Thanks everyone. MW

JANUARY 2009
14-15 Cambridge Junction
16 Birmingham Town Hall
17 Newbury Corn Exchange
20 Milton Keynes Stables
21 Oxford Playhouse
22-23 Warwick Arts
24 Lincoln Drill Hill
25 Maidstone Hazlitt
28 Swindon Wyvern
29 King's Lynn Corn Exchange
30 Reading Concert Hall
31 Canterbury Gulbenkian

FEBRUARY 2009
1 Portsmouth Wedgwood Rooms
4 Basingstoke Haymarket
5 Bath Komedia
6 Jersey Opera House
7-8 Leicester Y Theatre
9 Epsom Playhouse
17-18 Brighton Komedia
19 Stafford Gatehouse
20 Dundee Rep Theatre
21 Stirling MacRobert
22 Aylesbury Civic Centre
25 Derby Assembly Rooms
26 Bromsgrove Artrix
27 Nottingham Playhouse
28 Wakefield Theatre Royal

MARCH 2009
1 Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse
4 Cheltenham Town Hall
5-7 Norwich Playhouse
8 Southampton Nuffield
9 Wycombe Town Hall
12 Runcorn Brindley
13 Stockton Arc
14 Durham Gala
15-16 Glasgow Tron
19 Sheffield Memorial Hall
20 Blackburn King George's Hall
21 Warrington Pyramid
22 Winchester Theatre Royal
25 Aberystwyth Arts Centre
26 Pontardawe Arts Centre
27-28 Cardiff Sherman
29 Salford Lowry
31 Maidenhead Norden Farm

APRIL 1
1 Maidenhead Norden Farm
2 Tunbridge Wells Trinity
3-4 Colchester Arts Centre
5 Bristol Tobacco Factory
(traditional Bristol end-of-tour special show)

Hello. Final update for some time, because these will be my final shows for some time. This is going to be of limited interest to most people, but it might just turn a few heads in Bristol (UK) or Perth (Australia).

I'm at the Colston Hall, Bristol, this coming Saturday.
And then the Playhouse in Perth from November 3 to 9. You can get tickets at http://bocsticketing.com.au/. It'll be my first ever run in Perth.
Whoo.

Soon, I will publish details of my 2009 tour, which is going to be really bloody long and will take in nearly every habitation in Britain.

Mark

All this week, at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The Thursday one is going to be recorded for a DVD. Please come, if you can. It starts at 7.30 or as close to that time as you can get there. Ta.

M

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Hi everyone. Just letting you know about my new show, which you can now buy tickets for, if you fancy it.

It's called 'All The Thoughts I've Had Since I Was Born', so it should be pretty good value. I'm doing previews, i.e. not very good attempts at it, all of July. Then it's on at
The PLEASANCE GRAND, EDINBURGH, July 30- August 25.

After that, Londoners can sample it at
The BLOOMSBURY, LONDON, September 22-27.

Two of those nights, however - the 24th and 25th - are special nights as I'll be recording my first DVD. This means I will throw in some old jokes for good measure, and probably hop about nervously even more than usual.

And then to conclude matters, there is a special one-off home-town show at
The COLSTON HALL, Bristol, October 4.

You can get tickets for Edinburgh at www.edfringe.com.
For London on 0207 3888822.
For Bristol on 0117 9223686.

I'll be as grateful as I always am if you show up to one of these performances. All the more grateful if it's not just you but some other people too.

Thank you.
Mark

Just the tiniest of updates on my life and work.

My Radio 4 sitcom Spike's Lookalikes continues tonight at 11pm. If you missed the first one you can probably still just about find it on the Listen Again 'facility' on the BBC website. Or you can listen to episode 2 with someone who heard the first one, and copy their laughter patterns.

Thanks to everyone who turned up to the recordings. Quite fun, wasn't it. Certainly better than a lot of things you could do.

M

Massive apologies to anyone who came to the book-launch-that-never-was at Borders tonight. It was cancelled very late and for reasons I couldn't really control. I tried to spread the word as quickly as I could, but I couldn't get online to do a blog on MySpace. I'm very sorry to anyone who wasted their time turning up. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Really.

Tomorrow's event is still on, in Regent's Park. It's the Gloucester Gate entrance, which is near Camden tube. You should be able to find us as there will be small-scale merriment going on.

Sorry again and I hope some people can come tomorrow. It will not be cancelled. Unless I die.

M

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