Smiffblog.
Tube
The train taking me to Nantwich ground to a halt in a tunnel outside the station. It was hot, crowded and we passengers (‘customers’ as we have become – how ludicrous and irritating) were sweating and exasperated. There was a bing-bong and then the following announcement. ‘Good afternoon, this is your driver speaking. I’m sorry […]
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Butterfly Blog
Out waving goodbye to the retreating bluebells last week, I saw a dancing red butterfly; I smiled and remembered……. September, a couple of years ago, the Norwich Playhouse – the interval of Arthur Smith at Large has ended and, from off stage, I introduce my special guest, the legend that is Leonard Cohen. Leonard, the […]
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Machynlleth Comedy Festival
Warning: if you are not already wearing one, and are intending to read to the end of this blog, then you now need to go and find a hat to put on. Go on off you go. Machynlleth, you may not be surprised to learn, is in Wales and accordingly takes nearly 150 hundred years […]
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10 Years Ago…
Balance March 2012 It was my first time in Geneva, that grand old town on the lake, but I cannot say I was enjoying myself; propped up on 3 pillows, I lay in my hotel room, desperately trying to ignore the pain in my stomach and the thought that this was going to be my […]
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Blog about my Dad – Syd in Venice
I think the most successful sections of my autobiography, My Name is Daphne Fairfax were those featuring my father – the letter of praise for Daphne I most cherished ended, “and thank you, above all, for introducing me to Syd.” At the age of 70, prompted by my brother Richard, Syd spent several months writing […]
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Woman’s Weekly – Dealing with Bores.
Derek, who lived a couple of doors down from us, introduced himself to me and my girlfriend Jane one evening in our local pub and we invited him to join us. As he sat down he said, ‘A really funny thing happened to me at work today.’ This was nine o’clock. Two hours later I […]
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Written for the Guardian Travel Section
I had gone to a friend’s place in the South of France intending to forget my broken heart by writing a comedy show for the Edinburgh Fringe. Arles, as occupied by Romans and painted by Van Gogh, is an exquisite little town but, for 3 days, all I had done was to moon joylessly around […]
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Advice to young comics – something I may have written in the Stage.
A letter has flooded into me from regular reader and part-time stalker David Savage with the following questions: ‘Arthur, I am a rookie comic wondering how one sustain a career in comedy and how best to cope with one’s lot in this cruel world?’ I do not want to write directly to David […]
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Once I…
hitched a lift from a nun kissed an actress on Frith Street in Soho. A few years later she won an Oscar. was on stage at a Company Christmas party; the audience was irredeemably pissed – too pissed to understand my most Neanderthal joke. I tried the classic one-liner –“Arsenal are shit” – but even […]
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