Champions

I made this little video of the Smart Enough to Know Better ExpoSE event - aka, the giant zombie Nerf battle. I'm pretty impressed with my movie editing skills, but more impressive really is the performance of the little camera on the iphone 4S.

It was a super fun day out. Running around with big Nerf guns, I felt just like a proper hardcore, super-cool, zombie-fighting ninja gun-slinger. The photographic evidence, however, suggests otherwise:

Forget planking. The new craze is Flailing.
Thanks to @vonmuz for the picture.

It was a great way to recover after ImproMafia's big Theatresports Grand Championships the night before. Victoria was the eventual winning state, but it was a sensational night all round, and the New South Wales, ACT and of course Queensland teams also shone.

Photo thanks to Images by Anderson.

I love a bit of audience banter as an MC, and for some reason I developed this habit of being a bit sexually inappropriate with audience members. Normally I proffer clumsy compliments and feeble attempts at pick-up lines. Normally it's received with a tolerant giggle or two; but on Saturday night, two blokes in the very front vanished at interval! Granted, I had described one of them as a Karl Stefanovic lookalike in a tablecloth shirt, but surely he saw that for the high praise it really was? Apparently not. Anyway, at the very least it provided a good laugh for the crowd as my ego took a battering.

Thanks to everyone involved in both events for all their hard work and enthusiasm!

Bond 50

Today marks 50 years since Dr No was released in cinemas, beginning the best movie franchise ever. Yeah, I'm biased, I realise that. There's something about James Bond that you just don't get in Star Wars or Indiana Jones...

What, no Walther PPK at the gun show?

Despite having not technically officially started work for them yet, I pitched to Brisbane Times earlier this week that I put together a retrospective of 50 classic moments from the James Bond movies. Happily, they went for it, and you can check out my list here. I'm eager to find out what people think I may have missed.

Meanwhile - are you in Brisbane and looking for things to do this weekend? Because I have suggestions. Good suggestions.

Tomorrow night (Saturday 6 October) is the Theatresports Grand Championships at the Judith Wright Centre in Fortitude Valley. Teams from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra are flying in to take on our own Brisbane team.

I'm hosting the show, and couldn't be more excited. This morning, ImproMafia's own Amy, Dave and Tristan went on Spencer Howson's 612 ABC breakfast show and serenaded a listener live on-air, all off the cuff! You can hear how awesome they were here.

Then you should race over to the Judith Wright website and grab your tickets for the event. I promise I'll treat you nicely.

And to wrap up your week-end, what could be more fun than a brutal Sunday morning NERF battle royale? The Smart Enough to Know Better boys are hosting their own fun day this Sunday 7 October. It's called ExpoSE, and anyone's welcome to come along for the epic zombie NERF hunt. I'd bring NERF, if I were you. Did I mention there will be NERF? Find out more information here.

Phew! A big list of things to do and people to see. Enjoy your weekend, whatever you get up to.

Changing Times

I don't really believe in fate, destiny, kismet, etc, but as someone said to me recently, sometimes things have a way of falling into place nicely.

I'm happy to announce that I have been appointed the new entertainment reporter for Fairfax digital paper brisbanetimes.com.au.

The move comes after nearly seven years with 4BC/4BH radio, which became part of the Fairfax group in 2007. It means that I am staying in 'the family' as it were, which is great because my radio newsroom colleagues are pretty special people (even if they are obsessed with Big Brother and Carly Rae Jephson).

The opportunity came as a surprise, and given my interest in the arts, is a great fit. I look forward to features and other longer-form writing that the print form allows, and developing my knowledge and skills in a new area. Plus the new colleagues are fairly incredible too (even if they are obsessed with soccer and The Bold and the Beautiful).

Having said that, I will miss the state political beat that I have been walking for two years now (and on-and-off for two years before that). But the challenge ahead of me is irresistible, and anyway, you can never truly escape politics!

The timing is quite remarkable; I had already booked five weeks of leave, starting this Saturday, when I jet off to China with The Wah for two weeks.

I'll return for a week in October, just in time to host what promises to be a blockbuster show - the Theatresports Grand Championships. Produced by ImproMafia, it will feature teams from Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and of course Brisbane, battling it out to see who can be the most captivating and entertaining on stage.

Saturday 6 October. One show only.

As an aside, I have in fact been pondering potential conflicts of interest within my new role. After all, ImproMafia and the Brisbane Arts Theatre are great loves of mine. However, I've always fully disclosed my role with these companies. I also think a conflict of interest is more pertinent when you  actually MAKE money: ImproMafia is not-for-profit; the community-based BAT scrapes by with only its income from box office sales (no government or corporate support). I'm always keen to promote these companies; but I'm always keen to promote the live arts in general. Hopefully what my own experiences will give me is some insight and contacts within the sector.

After that, I head to Burma of all places, travelling with my parents and ever-impressive Gran.  In fact, the old girl and I will be sharing a cabin during part of the trip downriver from Mandalay. It'll be just like that time she was in the WRNS in World War Two (with less vomiting, hopefully).

After those adventures are done and dusted, I will start with brisbanetimes.com.au in late October.

It really is shaping up to be a lovely spring.

Thanks to everyone who reads girlclumsy.com - I can't wait to share even more tales of clumsiness with you.

Critically awesome

I wanted to share some wonderful pictures with you, courtesy of Kris Anderson.

After each performance of Critical Hit, Kris would ask for our performers to stay back after the show had finished, and let him take pictures of them in costume, and in different poses.

He was planning something, but none of us were exactly sure what.

A few days ago, he finished his secret project - which was to turn our fun improvised comedy show into something altogether more epic.

It's just amazing, isn't it? You can see our "real life" players just off to the right of centre, with the Games Master Billy (in the green shirt). Behind them are their characters: Nameless, the thief; Ky the warrior; and Melcor the wizard. To the left is an array of other characters that featured throughout the season. In the background, you can see the outline of part of the Critical Hit Map of Ages, that grew each night as we explored a different part of the world.

Impro is such a transient thing; it's lovely to be able to have images like this to really remind oneself - yeah, that was a thing I did. We're even looking at getting prints done, which will be lovely.

Next up from ImproMafia is our take on the classic 1001 Nights. All of our shows this year have had key images, featuring one of our performers. For this one, I got to dress up in genie pants and veil to portray the story-teller Scheherazade. Kris, in a creative masterstroke, decided to do some composite moon work, boost some colours, and so:

An Arabian Night will be Sunday 2 September, 7:30pm at the Brisbane Arts Theatre. Tickets $12, and you can grab them at the door. 

And while I'm talking all things BAT - make sure you head up there to see The Body Snatcher, a spine-tingling gothic thriller directed by the one and only Wah.

You can also head over to Facebook and like Kris Anderson's photography page.

D20 Destruction

Critical Hit wrapped up last night; thanks to everyone who came along to support the show and bestow their laughs on the performers.

If you didn't make it along, you may not have realised that our set piece was a giant twenty-sided die, known in role-playing parlance as a "D20".

It wasn't actually a full die, but the facade gave a pretty good appearance of solidity. I say "appearance", because we had to dismantle it after the final performance:

To be honest, the destruction had begun earlier, during the show, when I was playing a destructive demonic creature known as a "Magic Moose-ile". Left onstage to run riot (narratively appropriate, of course), I realised that we didn't need the D20 anymore. So I jumped into the space behind it and started kicking it out from within (which is why it's already half broken in the video above).

I must say I really loved doing that. There's something very satisfying in destroying something in the full knowledge that there are no repercussions for doing so. The set would've been broken up anyway; I just did it in a speedier, more flamboyantly violent way.

We also finished our Map of Ages! Six different locales within the world of Delphar, as the lands of the Critical Hit universe came to be known.

Original map outline by Dan Beeston
Locale art by Paul of Ace Comics & Games

And finally, I'd like to share this captivating character montage by our musician/photographer extraordinaire, Kris Anderson:

Pretty darn amazing, and just as entertaining that Dungeons and Dragons!

You can check out more about ImproMafia here. As always, I'm very proud of this company - full of good people with great ideas and brilliant stage presence. Thank you all again!

Critical Hit: Map of Ages

One of the lovely things about ImproMafia seasons is building a bit of mythos.

With our latest show, Critical Hit, we're developing a fantasy map to rival Game of Thrones.

Each of these locations has been created based on audience suggestions, and has been illustrated every night by the wonderful Paul from Ace Comics & Games.

I love it because it's quite difficult to create fantasy worlds on the spot, where our only set piece is a giant twenty-sided die (I'm not kidding).

So creating the Map of Ages (which is a name I just made up), is a great way of tracking the show's progress, and capturing forever some of the memorable audience offers we've been given.

We have three more shows to go at the Brisbane Arts Theatre, starting tonight! You can book online, and it's only $17/$15 entry.

And finally, here's some pictures of our intrepid leading characters, taken by the always excellent Kris Anderson.

Melcor the Magnificent: A Wizard

Ky, of the Once Eternal Wastelands: A Fighter

The Nameless: A Thief

As always, if you're in Brisbane, I'd love to see you there! Remember to check out our map.

On writing plays & role-playing

For years, I've been meaning to write a one-act play and enter the Brisbane Arts Theatre Drama Festival.

Every July it comes around, and every July it passes me by. Lack of time, lack of ideas, lack of any real knowledge about how South-East Queensland's festival circuit works.

Not this year.

The deadline for entries was June 30. That day, I dropped in my entry form and $35 entry fee. I even wrote down the name of my play: Downsize.

What I did NOT include was the script. Because I didn't have one.

Luckily for me, I know peeps up at the BAT, and I was able to bully convince them I would have a script ready by the festival, three weeks' hence. If I didn't and had to withdraw... well, I'd lose the $35. That deadline and mighty cash risk was enough to scramble my journalist brain into action.

The first hurdle was finding a second actor. After spending a week in text-message talks about whether I could just do it myself, which would allow me to, you know, improvise a fair chunk of it (honestly, scripts are for wimps), I was unequivocally told that there HAD to be at least two people in the play (not just me in a series of wigs), and that festival judges could deduct points if you veered off script too much.

So I HAD to write something. And I HAD to get a second actor.

I solved the second problem first by sending up the Elizabeth Best signal. I've known Lizzie for years, and many readers may remember her star turns in my productions of The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco and How To Be A Man. She's talented, clever, has great comic timing and is incredibly stylish, a key component for character I needed her to play. Thankfully she turned out to be just crazy enough to sign on for the task of learning a script and blocking in less than two weeks.

The first problem - writing a script - took a little longer to resolve. I'd had this idea for a two-handed comedy about an extreme diet that ends up producing a very weird side effect kicking around in the old noggin for a while. Finally I forced myself to start cranking it out. Unusually, I did this by moving my typing location to the couch, rather than the messy desk I usually set my laptop on. I cranked out the first act of the play in about three hours on a Wednesday night.

I sent it off to Liz with a note saying "Just so you know it's not all in my mind". When I received a text from her the next morning saying she loved it, I was chuffed. I finished the second half off on the Saturday, then took it all around to Liz's place for a rehearsal. I was encouraged by her laughter as we read through the script. That's always a good sign, particularly when you've been writing and you're tired and you can quite work out if a joke is funny anymore. Or was funny in the first place.

By day Liz works as an editor, and these skills came in very handy after that first read-through. She offered some great advice on how to ramp up the tension between our two characters, and I was able to rewrite sections to better effect.

We compared diaries and worked out another two times we could meet up to rehearse. Monday, then Thursday, the night before our allocated performance time on Friday 20 July. In between then, we crammed lines.

On Friday night, we turned up for our first-ever Drama Festival play.

When I submitted the entry form, there was a section asking for the name of our performance group. I had no idea what to call us. I looked at the slightly embarrassing form, with my name listed under "Playwright", "Director" and "Performer". Gawd, I thought. I don't have a name for this group. It's just my stupid vanity project.

BOOM.

As we went over our props and starting getting ready, we got a bit nervous. Would we remember our lines? Would the audience laugh? Would we get punished for not making the 30 minute minimum run time requirement?

In the end, as I've said so many times before theatrical productions, you just have to go out and f*** that puppy (Don't hate me, animal lovers, it may be cruel but it's succinct). So we did.

In a lovely gesture, a bunch of our friends had showed up to see us. I was incredibly grateful for that, because they were taking a chance on something that could very well be a steaming pile of unf***able puppy vomit.

Thankfully, they seemed to enjoy it! Liz and I both remembered our lines, and the audience seemed amused by both our back-and-forth banter and our slapstick physical gags (which included me eating a bunch of weird things; and Liz spilling milk all over herself). We got some lovely feedback from audience members and the adjudicator, Xanthe, who suggested we submit the show to other festivals around the South-East corner.

The festival continued, but I couldn't get to see much more of it, because of rehearsals and set construction work for Critical Hit, ImproMafia's newest season. Did I mention that I was rehearsing that while writing/rehearsing this little play? Well, I was. Yes, I'm that awesome/a complete idiot.

However, I did get back up there for the Sunday night prize-giving ceremony. And lo and fricking behold:

We won Third Best Play! Out of 12 eligible plays in the Open Section, we came in third! Very surprising and quite delightful. I also won an Adjudicator's Award - for what, I'm not entirely sure!

I must say a huge thank you to Elizabeth for coming onboard. She's now writing for a great new website called Super Quick Reviews, which I strongly recommend you check out. I'm so pleased she agreed to take a big leap into the unknown with me. We're hoping to put "Downsize" on again at the Sunshine Coast Theatre Festival from 17-19 August.

Until then, I'm back into the unscripted world with the SENSATIONAL new season from ImproMafia: "Critical Hit". It's totally inspired by geek culture - role-playing, D&D, high fantasy, Game of Thrones, World of Warcraft, you name it. We're doing SIX shows over two weeks - starting TONIGHT!

You can check out more and buy tickets here. As always - thanks to everyone who comes along and supports what I do onstage. Your time is honestly the greatest gift and compliment a performer can ever hope for. Your laughter is a sweet, sweet bonus.

More to Follow

I attended the lovely wedding of my friends Alister and Erin yesterday. Here's a picture of all three of us taken in the Photo Booth they had at the reception.

You get about 10 seconds between automated shots to work out
different poses. Sometimes you freeze. Hence examining our feet.

 I tell you what, aren't those photo booths hugely popular now? I've been to three functions in six months that have had them. They're pretty fun, and it's always good to give people something to do at a reception, I find, apart from supplying non-stop free booze, of course.

Anyway, we had an hour and a half between the end of the ceremony and the reception, so a crew of the improviser contingent (we're Al's nerdish comedy friends) headed to a pub for a preparatory libation and some relaxed banter.

The front bar had a few copies of The Courier-Mail lying around, so I had a flick through, and lo and behold, came across this on page 7 of the Life lift-out section.

It's titled "Five Radio Folk to Follow" on Twitter, and look! There's me!

Not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed they
didn't use one of my many expletive-laden tweets.

Thanks to editor Rod Chester, aka @Chesterrod for including me. It's lovely to be called an "entertaining blogger". I'm going to have to learn to juggle flaming sticks or something to provide more entertainment going forward. Maybe I could jelly-wrestle a lion or perform a tracheotomy on a recently arrived immigrant or something. Suggestions welcome, obviously.

One thing I definitely CAN do is point you in the direction of ImproMafia's upcoming Theatresports Gold Coast show. It's happening THIS Saturday 2 June at The Arts Centre Gold Coast.

It's just $20 a ticket, $17 concession. It's our first show on the Gold Coast, and we're really excited. If you're a local, and you enjoy live comedy, do come along. I'm the MC for the evening, so I can guarantee you a big night of laughs. Or I will personally beat our performers with birch branches.

Endorsed by Zookeepers

Do you ever picture in your head what the coolest-looking version of yourself would be?

In my head - and in my dreams - I get around the place like a cross between James Bond and Xena. Effortlessly stylish, but powerful and deadly, like cobra tie. The reality generally involves untucked shirts, tatty scarf-wearing and shoes ill-suited to my bizarrely shaped feet. I am a proponent, it must be said, of "buffoon chic".

Which is why I was more shocked than anyone to see that while playing for Queensland in the 2012 Theatresports National Championships, I may have accidentally combined the Xena/Bond asthetic to look the coolest I will probably ever look in my life.

Note to self: more corsets.

I had the privilege of being one-third of the Queensland team for the competition, and had even lightened my hair to better match Wade and Tom, and fit in with our fascist/steampunk "Team Hindenburg" concept.

The June Dally-Watkins modelling course
I did when I was 14 finally paid off.

The night featured teams from Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and the ACT. The performers are all top improvisers, with many of them achieving legend status. It was an absolute joy to share the stage with them; to jump into their scenes when required; and to rely on them to support us - in one scene, literally, when we chose to do a physical challenge where our feet couldn't touch the ground, forcing the others to carry us around the stage!
 
Our very first game was an "I Love You" scene, and the suggestion our gorgeous MC Rebecca de Unamuno received was "giraffe".

Now the Enmore Theatre is fairly big, and there were around 1000 people in the audience. Sometimes in a space that big, your brain just goes a bit blank and you can't think of something sensible or clever to say - if you can say anything at all. That's kind of what happened as Wade and Tom left the stage and I looked out at the lights. I didn't really have anything in my brain, so I launched into my dodgiest giraffe impression. I used the heels of my boots to shape a lope across the stage in that languid, giraffe-y style. I actually really love giraffes, and always like staring at them whenever I visit zoos. So in between lopes, I stopped and gave my lips a big lick, sticking my tongue out as far as I could.

I must have been out on the stage by myself for a minute, not speaking, just... attempting to be a giraffe. The audience seemed to enjoy it; and the scene got more fun when Wade came on as a lion who just wanted to eat the giraffe. After some discussion, we resolved to put the long-running war between giraffes and lions to one side to take on our true enemies, poachers. Wade threw out the brilliant line "But our alliance cannot just be political, it must be sexual," prompting an "I love you" and a big giraffe-y tongue pash. It was a really simple, charming scene.

Lion. Giraffe. Art.

At the end of the night, we were shocked and amazed to be announced the 2012 Champions. It was extraordinary. This sounds like forty-two types of bullcrap but I honestly wasn't expecting it. So I think we were all very chuffed!

Woot!

As we returned to the stage after the show wrapped up to have our photos taken with the Championship Belt, four young women in the middle of the auditorium starting yelling and waving at me. I couldn't hear what they were saying, so I ran down the steps at the front of the stage and up the aisle to meet them. They were all in their 20s or 30s, still carrying drinks, obviously not yet finished their night.

"We all work at Taronga Zoo!" they cried as I reached them. "Your giraffe was SPOT ON!"

It was one of the best compliments I've ever received. Girl Clumsy: Officially Endorsed By Zookeepers.
 
You can see a full gallery of the show at the website of photographer Stephen Reinhardt, and a special thanks to Stephen for letting me use some of his images here. I must also thank the wonderful Impro Australia for all their support, and for putting on a professional and energetic show.

Wade and I returned to Brisbane around lunchtime on Sunday, to prepare for his show Jorogumo at the Brisbane Arts Theatre.

I'm really pleased with how this performance went - based on Japanese monsters and fairytales, I thought it was a wonderful format with shades of light and dark.

Wearin' whiteface and kimonos. That's how we roll.
Thanks to Paul Harris for the picture.

Life is swings and roundabouts though, as I spent much of Monday and Tuesday this week pondering whether I'm actually any good at impro at all. That's not me trying to fish for compliments, it really isn't. I think you're often your worst critic, but in my case, I felt slightly undeserving of the Nationals win, and felt like I should have done bolder work in Jorogumo.

I'm hoping this feeling is a good one though; the day I think I know everything about impro and can't improve is probably the day I should give it up.

Our next big show is on the Gold Coast! That's right, we're doing a one night only Theatresports show at The Arts Centre Gold Coast on Saturday 2 June. If you live near the coast, I highly recommend the show - tickets are only $20 and we'll even bring down the Championship Belt to show off just how good ImproMafia really is!

Flames and Ghosts

This weekend, I'll be performing in both Sydney AND Brisbane!

I'm heading to Sydney to be part of the Queensland team for the Theatresports Nationals competition on Saturday 19 May, at the massive Enmore Theatre.

Flanked by teammates Wade and Tom.

Wade initially suggested we name our team "Titanic", in honour of Queensland's "living treasure", Clive Palmer (if you hadn't heard, he plans to build a replica Titanic). I replied that perhaps it wasn't the best plan to name ourselves after one of history's most infamous disasters, it'd be like calling ourselves "Team Hindenburg".

"TEAM HINDENBURG! YES!" was the unanimous reply from Wade and Tom. So now we're named after an airship that went down in flames. It's such an obvious metaphor, surely we can't actually lose? Our costume theme has somehow morphed into slightly-fascist-steampunk, so at the very least we're going to damn well be the best dressed team on the night. Or else.

The Nationals is always an amazing show; super high energy and bucketloads of fun. If you're keen, you can book a last minute special ticket deal through the booking page here.


Wade and I then fly back on Sunday morning in time for ImproMafia's Sunday night show - Jorogumo: The Spider Woman.

Inspired by Japanese lore, fairytales and horror stories, this is going to be a fascinating night of improvisation. There'll be fox maidens and samurai and geishas and tragic love stories and demons and monsters and magic and all sorts of fun things. ImproMafia maintains playfulness and comedy in all our performances, because we always want our audience to come away with their funnybone tickled. But this show promises to have moments of light and shadow, and I think that will really delight patrons.

So if you're in Brisbane on Sunday 20 May, head up to the Brisbane Arts Theatre on Petrie Terrace. The show starts at 7:30pm, and tickets are only $12 at the door. You can also book tickets online.

As always, I'm incredibly grateful for all the support my creative endeavours receive; I hope to see you at a show!

WTF? New Clumsy!

Welcome to the refreshed, rejuvenated, revived and renaissance-d Girl Clumsy HQ.

For several months now, I have been working diligently with the divine Ms Sharon Carpenter, Esquire-ess, Supplier of Fine Boutique Websites for the Distinguished and World Domination-Inclined.

This week, Ms Carpenter and I have been holed up in her three-storey underground eco-lair near the Melbourne seaside, emerging only to restock the lair's supply of flavoured sparkling mineral water and scare pelicans off the satellite dish.

20 Pics of 2011 (via mobile phone)

I've had my HTC Mozart Windows phone for just over a year now. It serves my purposes well enough, but I must admit that my usage remains fairly basic. Calls, texts, email, Twitter, a bit of web browsing. I've not explored the world of "apps" much; mainly because I figure there are maybe 17 or 18 that have been made for the Windows Phone.

One feature I do use is the inbuilt camera. It's not particularly great quality, as the shutter button is external, not on the screen, so it's harder to fire off those super-quick shots people with iPhones seem in the habit of doing. However, it's often the only camera I have on me, as my other camera is a big Nikon DSLR.

I thought it might be fun to have a look back at the year that was 2011, through the prism of my mobile phone camera. So often our mobile phone pictures are disposable. I thought collating a few might help me look back on the year, and the shape it was. I took hundreds of pictures, but displaying them all would be foolishly boring, or boringly foolish. So I settled on the round number of 20 to show to you. Some I've used in posts or tweets throughout the year; some are blurry; some are just plain silly.

But, here they all are anyway. 20 Pics of 2011 - via my mobile phone.

Free Willies

I'm not revealing their names yet; that will be a surprise for opening night.

But here they are, wandering wild along Petrie Terrace: two giant willy costumes.

Hopefully this video will make no sense - but give you a laugh and make you want to see How To Be A Man.

 

Meanwhile, ImproMafia is still in action - we've got the amazing 1940s mystery men show Fists of Fury coming up for three Sundays starting 6 November. It's got action, combat, over-sized comic book weapons - all for just $12 per show. You should totally check it out.

It's a busy time for me up at the Brisbane Arts Theatre, that's for sure! One day soon I'm hoping for a day off.

Cuffed

Last weekend saw ImproMafia stage its Off the Cuff Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

It was a tremendously successful three days, featuring six shows on Thursday and Friday, and culminating in the Theatresports National Championships on Saturday.

Our audiences grew remarkably across the three nights - we actually sold out the Saturday night show two days early and had numerous people chasing tickets!

In the end, comedy was the real winner. Also: Victoria.

Our interstate guests all reported having a great time, which is a credit to ImproMafia, and in particular, to the dedicated group of organisers pulling all the strings. I helped with marketing and publicity, and the large crowds really were a balm to the publicist's soul.

Most important though were the shows themselves - and all were a wonderful quality. It really was a showcase event. I was thrilled to be able to perform four times, plus co-host the Nationals with my good buddy Wade.

After the show, we had to go kill some supervillains.

I wanted to thank everyone who came along to the festival and made it such a success. Your support really was invaluable, and being able to entertain people is the reward for the hard slog of organising a major event. And thanks again to Kris Anderson, our wonderful musician, for letting me use his lovely photographs (given that I was too busy to remember to take any of my own).

I also wanted to apologise again for using my blog as my own private pimpdom. I promise I will restrain myself from blatant self-promotion for the next few months.

Oh, but one more thing?

Girl Clumsy lies.

Bring on 12 November, baby. Mama's got some more people to offend...

A Year Since 30Before30

This time, one year ago, I was in the midst of one of the craziest projects I've ever dreamt up - the 30Before30 mission.

In the six weeks leading up to my 30th birthday on October 13 2010, I attempted 30 things I'd never done before. This included little things like drinking a cup of tea and drinking alcohol to the point of intoxication, physical things like pole-dancing, Morris dancing and climbing the Story Bridge, and controversial things like watching a porno and doing stand-up comedy (where I briefly managed to elicit a comedy version of a fatwah from Brisbane's open-mic community).'

Brisbane Times very kindly published my pieces, and some very kind people made donations. I raised about $100, split evenly between the Red Cross and the Brisbane Arts Theatre.

Of course, I failed in my endeavour. I only managed 27 things in that time frame. Keep in mind I was still working full time and running impro shows throughout. Projects had to be squeezed into any spare time I had. I was still pretty happy with what I achieved, but I do wish I'd made the 30.

But I sit here a year later, and ponder the whole experiment, and wonder whether it was anything more than a glitch in my life matrix. The only activity from the 30 list that I've subsequently done is stand-up comedy, but even that has stopped in recent months given regularly scheduled busy-ness.

I flirted briefly with the idea of doing the project, or something like it, before my *gulp* 31st birthday, now rolling upon me like a hourglass-shaped donut.

But I'm already focusing my creative energies on a few projects, and it's actually only proper that's where my attention is. The good news is - they do provide opportunities to try new things.

The first project is the Off the Cuff Festival, which is coming up between 29 September - 1 October at the Brisbane Powerhouse. This is a massive festival of improvised comedy, featuring shows from around Australia, ImproMafia's brilliant Prognosis: Death! and Agatha Holmes, as well as finishing with the 2011 Theatresports Nationals, a huge competition featuring teams from SIX states.

This is a really incredible achievement for ImproMafia, as we're entirely self-funding the festival. Normally these things don't go on without some kind of government funding or corporate sponsorship. But we've put in the hard yards over the years and built up enough money that we can do this ourselves. I'm so proud of the company.

This festival will in fact provide me with an opportunity to do something I've never done before - perform at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

Photo kindly taken by Kris Anderson

I'll be performing in shows on both Thursday 29 and Friday 30 September, then I have the great honour of co-hosting the Theatresports Nationals on Saturday 1 October.

I'd love to see friendly faces there, so do consider grabbing some tickets and coming along!

And if you have any suggestions about other activities I should do to ensure I'm always trying new things, feel free to let me know.

Fun with a Harpsichord

Agatha Holmes Ahoy! enters its final week tonight. We have three more shows in this incredibly fun and stoically British murder mystery comedy, set on the high seas.

Last Saturday night saw the death of a regular character - SS Snobbington leisure manager and all around snivelling toady Antony Thatcher. It was a surprise for everyone, but not necessarily in a bad way. In the video, you'll see the cast's hymn of "mourning", as well as Agatha Holmes' unique method of playing the harpsichord.

Our wonderful musician Kris Anderson supplies the notes for the harpsichord, making us all look much more musically competent than we are.

Kris also takes amazing photographs, and I wanted to share this particularly spectacular one:

The show plays Thursday 11 August, Friday 12 August and Saturday 13 August. Tickets are $17 adults and $12 concession. The Brisbane Arts Theatre is 210 Petrie Terrace, and the show starts at 8pm!

Agatha Holmes Ahoy!

Egads! It's been over a week since I posted an entry here at girlclumsy.com

I should really say "It's been over a week since I blogged", but something about the word "blogged" still seems to evoke an unfortunate bowel movement or a gardening mishap.

The week has been extraordinarily busy, covering state parliament at work, and rehearsing and preparing for  Agatha Holmes Ahoy! - ImproMafia's latest season at the Brisbane Arts Theatre.

This is a murder mystery comedy set on the high seas, in which the audience determines the murderer by ballot every night. We also use their suggestions for the murder weapon and a tell-tale clue, and it's up to Britain's sharpest detective mind to solve the whodunnit.

Here's a clip from our opening night on Thursday - "The Reason for the Rhyme". This gives you a good idea of what an insanely brilliant (or possibly just insane) sleuth Agatha Holmes is.

I play Lady Augusta Wellesley, an ice-cold socialite of aristocratic heritage with a tongue sharper than her great-great-uncle Arthur's battle sword. She's a lot of fun to portray - and hell, who doesn't love dressing up?

Picture courtesy of the brilliant Kris Anderson.

I do hope those of you living in or near Brisbane will come and check out the show - we're playing until Saturday 13 August.