The London REVIEWS

Ahh! Although I've performed my show numerous times in the US and Africa, performing my month-long run in London is the first time the show has ever been reviewed by critics. I think getting reviewed is scary for any performer, now add on that the performer is the writer and director as well, and I basically get scared shitless.

I'm happy to report that all of my reviews have been really, really good! Well, except one. We will get to that soon. Because some of the reviews are just in print and not online, I'll create a list of excerpts for you to easily peruse.

The Reviews:

"A performance masterpiece." - Newsline UK

" * * * * " - Ham & High

"A story worth sharing." - Time Out

"A brave debut from a talented, versatile performer." -

The Stage

"Engaging from beginning to end." - Camden New Journal

"Absolutely incredible!" - JCom Radio

Here are links to some of the reviews

available to read online:

The Stage

The Camden New Journal

Time Out London

London: The Half-Way Point

Today marks the beginning of Week 3 of our 4-week long stint at the New End Theatre in London. It's an odd check-in point. It feels like I've been here for months, but then it also feels like time's been flying.

I think the month of June spoiled Stacie and me. We were able to do a bit of traveling around Europe, and our show performances were part of festivals that organized everything for us. Now, in London, I perform Tuesday-Sunday, a total of 28 shows. Although the theatre has done marketing and reviews have been quite good, we still don't have a large captivated audience that we can bring in each night to see the show. Our target audience: London. We've tried flyering, but it seems that most people just want a picture with me dressed up as the mascot then actually coming out to see the show. We've put up posters in shops and restaurants. We've flyered cars in the parking lot. (I've always hated when people put things on my car, yet now I've become one of them!) All in all, as my dear friend Jessica reminds me, just getting a small number of people to come out each night to see a show about some American guy who nobody knows in England is quite remarkable. And as my other dear friend Shana reminds me, every artist goes through some sort of hurdle like this, and only after you can power through it can you really reap the benefits.

Wow, this blog post has quickly turned into a cheesy downer, huh? I'm having an amazing time here and I've realized in the past couple of weeks that performing the show night after night is exactly what I want and what I should be doing right now in my life. So, if I have to live off a couple baguettes everyday as my food intake, fine!

I thought this picture adequately describes this post. Sorry if it's too frightening for you.

Our London Flat!

The Leeds Performing Arts Festival

The week that Stacie and I have been spending in Leeds, England, has been incredible. We are staying in home hospitality with a wonderful couple who has four grown children and we get spoiled with home-cooked meals, laundry service, and our own rooms! We cannot get used to this!

The show has been received very well by audiences. I'm performing in this cool, black box space that gives the show a great intimate feel. I also got the chance of leading some drama workshops at the Jewish day school in Leeds this week. When I first started talking, the children were amazed by my accent! It was a lot of fun working with them. Enjoy the pictures!

With Rena Strober and Josh Esptein, two other solo performers at the festival, and Stacie

Bruno the Bull....is Bruno the Bull!

Here's Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno at the premiere of his movie in Madrid.

Hmmm....quite similar to Bruno the Bull from Jordy Pordy!

The Jordy Connection

Stacie's bags arrived late last night to our hotel in Newcastle. A great relief since we left very early for the bus this morning. Thanks, British Airways! It was so thoughtful of you to return our bags only hours before we leave the city. We head to London today, but only overnight. We will be stopping by the theatre we're performing at to drop off some of our bags and get ready for our trip to Ireland later in the week.

Newcastle was a great start for our tour. Since the city is in Northern England, the people there aren't used to American tourists, so everyone treated us so nicely and wanted to hear us talk in our "American accents" more. Coincidentally, Newcastle-ites refer to themselves as Geordies (pronounced Jordies).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordie

How fitting for our first stop on the Jordy Pordy tour!

Bruno grasping for air upon his arrival to the UK.

The First Show

Location: Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, England

Today was the first performance of Jordy Pordy in England and I was very excited but nervous about audience reaction. Plus, I was scrambling to figure out how to get around not having my set and only half of the bull costume (Stacie's bags are still missing—and it's day three!)

The performance was a session option included in a day-conference for Jewish learning. Our session was the same time as the wine tasting, so I already felt like I was being gypped. Jordy Pordy over free wine? Tough Call. We arrived at the Royal Grammar School in the morning for our rehearsal (the show was slated for the afternoon) and we met a loopy 40-something woman who was getting ready for her dance workshop right before our show. After talking for a few minutes, she slyly forced Stacie and me to join in on her workshop. Fine, I'm up for a little movement as a warm-up before my show.

Turns out that Stacie and I were thrown into this "dance workshop" with eight 60+ and older British Jewish women who thought tapping their feet and waving their arms in the air was dancing. The instructor led us through her favorite Jewish dances, apparently off her "Annoying Jewish Kids Sing Jewish Music Volume 3" CD. I was the only guy in this workshop, which also made things awkward. But the highlight of the workshop came when the instructor got to the climax of the session: The Hava Nagilah! "Did you know," she informs us, "that people don't know how to dance the Hava Nagilah anymore! Seriously. People are now hiring dancers to come in and teach the dance at their Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties." The next ten minutes was spent learning how to cross one foot over the other while moving around in a circle. Oy.

Finally, it came time for my session! The show was in a nice intimate space and about 20 people showed up. As I began the first 20 minutes or so of comedy, the audience had no reaction. Nothing. No laughs. No smiles. Just completely motionless faces. Shit, I thought. My first performance in Britain and they already hate it. It was a long show to get through, but afterwards I was pleasantly surprised with the audience reaction: applause! People came up to Stacie and me and told us how much they liked it. Great, but, um, were you ALIVE during the actual performance? I guess I'll just have to get used to these quite Brits.