Evolving as an artist over time and right now.

Since last weeks blog and video I had been ill and not felt up to creating a new video this week. However one of my goals for 2020 was to upload a new comedy video each week and my experiments with gaming streaming on my PS4 had not worked quite in the way I had wished.

(However I do intend on doing another experiment tomorrow, which I am hopeful about.)

So I was left on Thursday with no video recorded and not able to record a new one. Or at least felt unable to output a work to a standard I was happy with. I looked through an old hard drive as I do have a few videos that I have recorded in advance that have not yet been put out. These were all filmed before the lockdown however I feel my output should be informed by the lockdown to be properly effective at the moment.

On the hard drive not only did I find the old files but a fully edited video that I hadn’t published online. Result! But upon watching it I felt that it FELT old. In all stages of production it was 2 years old. In terms of content it was fine but I just did not feel like I could put it out. So I made the decision to re-edit the whole video from the ground up.

screen shot 1interview with Mike milling as I thought I was Conan O'Brien at the time

credits
These are some of the bits that did not make the final cut that I just felt did not feel had a place in a video I was making in 2020.

 

It was really nice to be able to see how far I’d come comedically and also in terms of my online output and style. It also made me think about how I feel that I am evolving as an artist and it is a constant slow march. I also think that it is good to allow yourself to evolve slowly but also to allow change that is informed by the real world and your relation to it. Which is something I would encourage all comics and artists to do.

I hope to never stop evolving as an artist and keep on striving to be better.

 

 

 

The reason for my absence and my comedy metamorphasis.

It occurred to me that this website exists after paying actual money to keep it maintained and alive over the past 2 years when I have barely used it.

So what news is there from the last few years? Well I am a runner up chortle student comedian of the year for 2019 and finalist in the Leicester square new comedian of the year 2019. I had what was considered a successful Edinburgh debut show ‘Tom Short’s wheel of misfortune’ playing at the prestigious Three sisters venue which was simultaneously reviewed as ‘The most fun show in the whole venue’ and ‘The worst 5 minutes of my life’ by someone who identified as Fiona.

There is a couple of reasons for my break from the website: Firstly I changed up what I do and spent a while finding my voice rebranding myself as an improviser solo comic clown act which has been equally freeing and constricting. It is freeing in it allows me to be much more creative than I feel i was in my previous output. But restricting in terms of clear direction in an industry that wants to pigeon hole you in order to market you in a stand up dominated industry.

Myself in clown makeup
Part of my experiments with clowning and street theatre and busking.

Secondly I went to university to do a masters in contemporary performance practice at Salford university which partly inspired my change of direction. Learning of the craft of performance in more specific and investigatory ways has allowed me to create work in exciting ways which I am excited about.

A further thing that I would say is that as part of my research I found links between comic performance and my own mental health. This has set me to approach comedy in a much different way as I think that it is no coincidence that the trope of the sad clown is so prevalent in pop culture especially after the suicide of Robin Williams proclaimed by some to be the funniest man to have ever lived. I feel I am still on this journey and am hoping to eventually study a PhD that investigates this link and hopefully will go on to inform mental health in the comic arts and in parallel comic arts in mental health.*

A further thing that came from my study of contemporary theatre allowed me to more effectively collaborate and create collaborative work. Something which I think my previous direction as a stand up comic made my mindset much harder to overcome creative logistical blocks. My latest thing I have been working on is an online travel series called ‘Tom visits…’ on youtube.

 

*if you are interested in reading any of the research from my masters I have published lots of articles and portfolios on macpptomshort.wordpress.com and have some upcoming articles to be published for the academic journal ‘Comedy studies’ in association with my academic collaborator and mentor Dr Ian Wilkie.