Comedian and BGT winner Jon Courtenay explains what you can expect from his latest show, as it heads to Chorley and Lytham St Annes this Spring.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 What is the first half of the album?
00:08 The first half is very much what I've been doing for the last 20 years
00:12 in as much as it's piano and songs and chatting and a bit of stand-up and mostly comedy.
00:19 There's a couple of songs there that I've written with which unusually I didn't write to try and be funny,
00:24 just a couple of songs that I really like performing.
00:26 So the first half is pretty much piano and chatting and quite informal
00:31 and then the second half is a rewrite of a show that I took to Edinburgh two years ago called Against the Odds
00:38 which started as my way of processing what I'd gone through with the whole cancer thing.
00:44 I think the problem with trying to sell this is people hear the word cancer and go 'Oh my God, why do we want to go and see a show?'
00:51 It's not just about that, as I say, it's got the broader theme of making the most of every day
00:56 but I was certainly influenced by what I went through.
00:59 Combined with what I was going through, it was the highest point of my career and the lowest point of my health.
01:04 I'd never been that sick before and for a long time that was tearing me in half.
01:09 I didn't know how to process any of it.
01:11 I should have been jumping off the sofa and amazed that all this excitement was happening to my career after 25 years
01:18 but I wasn't because I'd have one day doing a recording at the studios
01:24 and then two days later I'd be at hospital having treatment and being scared out of my wits.
01:30 So I started writing the show about that but again, being who I am and what I do,
01:34 I was not laughing at it because that makes it sound frivolous and it was too important for that
01:39 but certainly trying to keep my chin up, the stiff upper lip and all that business.
01:43 I wrote a lot of stuff during that time and at the end of that period, once I'd got the all clear
01:49 that it had been a year and a half, this show came out of it which mixes the whole BGT stuff.
01:56 It's got some of the behind the scenes stories going on that were happening on BGT
02:01 combined with me dashing to the hospital but it's all told with this musical winks kind of thing.
02:08 It's fun. It is a fun show.
02:11 I know that's a really hard sell when you hear the synopsis.
02:15 It doesn't sound like something that's going to be fun but it is.
02:18 I think it's an interesting story. With so many people nowadays being affected by cancer,
02:23 it used to be one in three when I was growing up.
02:26 My granddad and my great granddad, they all suffered but now it's one in two.
02:31 It's a scary statistic.
02:34 So even if it's not yourself, then it's your neighbour or your family or somebody like that.
02:38 I think there's a message in the show about how you can possibly get your head around it
02:41 and how you can help cope, whether it's you or a friend or family member.
02:46 Yeah, hopefully. That's the idea.
02:48 If you come and see the show, I can promise you I will do my best
02:57 to give you a really memorable night's entertainment.
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