Many people look at Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia and see just an empty room but a whole host of people are employed (both openly and behind the scenes) to keep the show on the road. Here is a look at our staff and acts (in order of impotence):

The Management (in order of power)

Brian Damage

website

CEO

Brian Damage is the Proprietor & CEO of Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia.   Owning the club is a heavy responsibility and a continual burden. This means that he is hardly ever there.   He is often at Pear Shaped in Sydney because that is geographically about as far away as he can get.   Sometimes he is at his Fringe show (Pear Shaped in Edinburgh) rubbing shoulders with the A-list and marketing the gig to them as not a complete waste of time in an empty room. Brian is in charge of booking acts and being generally affable as head compere. The absence of Brian can lead to some awful evenings and the deterioration of the Pear into a very bad club when Mr Miller is left (for want of a better word) in charge.   As CEO Brian has the responsibility of sometimes talking to the landlord of the pub – usually about once every 9 years...   It is Brian's job to make sure there is a handle of some description on the inside of the door.   He enjoys sitting at the table in the corner by the bar where the acts cant get at him and devolving social interaction to other lesser mortals.   Brian is in charge of booking the acts.   A couple of years ago Brian decided to branch out into Cabaret and rediscover Music Hall with his gig Pear Shaped at Turnmills.   This was a huge success with as many as two punters coming to at least one night and resulting in the nightclub being rebuilt as an office block.   Following this Mr Damage moved the gig to Pear Shaped at the Orwell – a pub just outside the tube network but not far enough away to be an out of town gig.   Following this experience Mr Damage has promised that he wont be opening any more clubs with no one at them.   One is enough!

Krysstal

webpage

PA to CEO

Krysstal forms part of a unique male/female double act with Brian Damage, Comedian, Singer and All Round Grumpy Bastard. Basically she is his PA.   Brian, recognizing her irresistible talents, took Krysstal on as his Glamorous Assistant and is teaching her all about Show Business by not trusting her with any Management responsibilities and keeping her nose pressed so permanently flat against the glass ceiling she is starting to look slightly oriental. Many of you have written in requesting patterns for Krysstal's dresses.

Vicky de Lacy

Website

As Krysstal is obviously too busy looking after Mr Damage to purchase her own clothes, mention must also be made of Vicky de Lacy who has a full time job in selecting and designing Krysstal's limited and never changing wardrobe.   She has also recently designed clothes for Susan Boyle & Ann Widdecombe.   The pattern for all Krysstal's clothes is available in "Madge and Monty's Handy Hot Hints" 1' 6d from Messer's Waterstones and WH Smith.

Madge and Monty

webpage

Writers & Inventors

Madge & Monty are the Oliver Postgates of Pear Shaped and the real people behind the fantastic fantasy comedy characters Brian Damage and Krysstal. Madge spends a lot of time washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning and in the garden too, while Monty potters in his shed and listens to the wireless in order to keep up to date with any topical events that might be important for inclusion in Mr.Damage's set.   We wouldn't want to miss out any reference to topical events such as the bad things that Colonel Nasser is doing in Egypt and whether Mr. Eden should go it alone.   Would you believe that you could rebuild the stage and the lighting of Pear Shaped in your own home using only double sided sticky-tape?

Anthony Miller

website

Anthony is Managing Director of The Pear – that is Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia (the cash cow of the Pear Shaped Comedy Empire).   It is his job to manage the day to day running of the club.   This involves turning up.   Being there when Mr Damage is otherwise engaged or can't be arsed (often 9 months of the year).   Pissing people off.   Calling people cunts.   Encouraging no-hopers to turn up and fill stage time.   Trying to keep alcoholics sober.   Booking comperes.   Filling the holes left in the crumbling line-ups of people pulling out to get proper gigs and feigning illness.   Supervising the light.   Erecting the curtain.   Diffusing potentially violent confrontations with his considerable personal charm.   And making sure plebeians such as Mike Belgrave don't set the club on fire.   His hobbies include watching television and vituperative public rows.   He is deputy compere.   Anthony Miller rose to the position of Managing Director on the resignations of Dave Dynamite and Paul Foot (see below) having seen a power vacuum.

The Staff of Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia

(In order of burnout)

Al Mandolino

Musical Director

It is Al's job to drown out the sound of open spots bitching about the gigs they can't get booked for before the show and during the interval.   His hobbies include building Mandolins and painting houses.   Al is the replacement for El Nino. Unlike El Nino for whom everything was the Theme Tune from Mash Al Mandolino prefers poorly played variety to well practiced monotony.   Following the advice of Noel Coward to "start off with a medley – that way you get rid of several tunes at once" he plays medleys and is very good at starting. Of course he can't play a single tune from beginning to end yet but he has the ambition to and we applaud him in this. As Josie Long would say “Trying is Good” and Mr Al's music has been described by many contemporaries as “extremely trying”.   He has been nominated for many awards for his Banjo playing up to and including Grade 1.

Ava Alexis

Head Of Human Resources

Ava Alexis was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina. She was the youngest of six children of Mary Elizabeth and Jonas, an impoverished cotton and tobacco farmer. Ava's father lost his farm when she was two, and the family moved to West Norwood where her mother worked in a sawmill.   At age 18 she went to London, where her extraordinary beauty won her a contract as Head of Human Resources at Pear Shaped. It was Ava's job to persuade the punters (or their boyfriends) to actually part with their money and kick those who wont pay their way in life OUT!    She can be seen in three dimensions at other comedy gigs such as the Chuckle Club or Downstairs at the Kings Head. Sometimes Mr Miller is allowed to carry her shopping if he has been good.   Recently the stress of being head of seating at the Pear has become so heavy that Ms Alexis has taken some time off to visit Barbados and kill termites.  

El Nino & Becky Munday

website

El Nino was appointed Head of playing the theme tune from MASH until he decided to do some gigs with actual punters at them instead. Becky Munday was one of a long line of singers who worked for El Nino until he murdered them and hid their bodies under the floorboards.  

Alan Wilde

Before the employment of Ava Alexis, Alan was Head Caretaker and amusement operative.   It was his job to walk round the corner from a key worker flat in Bonham-Carter House and turn up whenever a funny comedian has let us down – this is more or less every Wednesday.   Many of you may remember Alan from his walk on cameo as a shit comedian in episode 5 of Phoenix Nights.   Sometimes he was allowed to talk at the end of the show as the club was being dismantled.    His expertise in X-ray photography was so widely recognised he was almost made redundant and has now been redeployed in another area of the hospital.   He was not allowed to compere as this would result in too much hilarity.   After Mr Miller's tour of New York he came back to find that Mr Wilde had disowned not only the Pear but the whole of comedy society.   He can still be found propping up the Spanish Bar in Hanway Street.   And can sometimes be seen upstairs in Fitzroy tavern if he's sure Pear Shaped is not on that night... or if he has forgotten that it is a Wednesday today.

The Deputy Deputy Comperes of Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia

(In order of persistence)

Jimbo from Oz

You wait for ages for one Jimbo and then another one comes along.   The second Jimbo is from Australia and is so famous there that people from Australia have come to see him at Pear Shaped.   Unfortunately they had confused the second Jimbo with the first and sat through the whole evening until 11pm when one of them sheepishly asked, “Where's Jimbo?”.   After it was explained to them that Jimbo was the name of the middle aged man they had been watching shout and cough his way through the acts they gave us a look so much as to say that some kind of deception had been performed.   The Second Jimbo's hobbies include sleeping in doorways and “freaking other comedians out by telling them I'm homeless”.   He now has a home and awaits a statement from Lunar House telling him that he faces deportation.    He is Head of Making Phallic Balloon Animals

Ray Presto

Young Mr Presto has risen rapidly from deputy deputy time filler to deputy deputy compere.   A retired magician with a vast array of material ranging from Christmas Cracker gags to astute one liners he has even been known to give the audience five pounds of his own money.   Ray is a regular at the Comedy Store where he used to open the second half of the King Gong Show.   As well as doing the Comedy Store Gong Ray has also done a number of 10-minute spots there.   He once showed us a comedy store program, which billed him as “an open spot”.   He often goes to Thailand for the culture.    His hobbies include pestering Mr Damage for stage time even though we only have one club and he's already in the diary to compere, headline, open and close the first half and there are no spots he hasn't done here.

Danny Hurst

Website

Danny Hurst describes himself as probably the only orthodox Jewish, bisexual, left-handed, vegetarian Manchester City fan on the circuit. A peculiar combination of camp butchness, Danny has worked in just about every field of performance art, including theatre, circus and telesales.

Once a professional stilt-walker and fire eater, he toured with top ten band Dodgy in 1996 and has performed all over the UK, as well as recent tours of Japan and the South of France, Amsterdam and Barcelona. A truly international performer it is Danny's job is to ring Mr Miller at 7.30 saying “my Bike's got a puncture”, at 8.00 saying “I've found a pub” at 8.15 saying “the pub have let me have a bowl of water” and at 9.15 saying “I think I've found the puncture but I'm not sure I can fix it in time to get there”.   Most of the time, however, he does make it and is most entertaining.   He once rode to Edinburgh Fringe on his bike, which is not advisable.

Past and Occasional Comperes of Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia

(In order of their disappearance)

Paul Foot

Head of Knowing Better

Paul was the original deputy compere of Pear Shaped but following what is now known as "the Aaron Barshack Hagen Daaz ice cream incident” he resigned to preserve his sanity. It is now his job not to turn up any more and to go on television instead. He does not have a website, he has the Guild of Paul Foot Connoisseurs.

Norby West

Norby West was the original deputy deputy compere under the direction of Mr Paul Foot (then deputy compere).   Norby (nee Richard Elkan) retired six years ago because of declining health, which was probably a sensible move in the long term, as he has since died. Paul Foot said: ‘I would pop round to his flat, he'd give me a stale biscuit and we would laugh at amusing moments from our comedy careers.'   His obituary is here. If you would like to book Norby we do not have contact details for his agent. However, for a small charge – less than £1 a week each– we can put you in touch with his undertaker.

There are two options for payment:

£12 every quarter through Pay Pal    £48 for a year, by cheque

Kevin Dewsbury

Website

Following the resignation of Mr Foot, Mr Dewsbury filled the immediate vacuum. Wisely surmising that the vacuum existed due to a lack of punters he handed in his resignation almost immediately and can now be seen all over the country in front of actual people.

Dave Dynamite (nee Brockway)

During Mr Damage's 9-month tour of Australia several years ago Dave Dynamite was Head of the European sub-division with Stephen Carlin as his immediate inferior.    Stephen didn't like being inferior and left to have a career.   As a result Mr Miller rose to the rank of deputy deputy-compere while it was Mr Dynamite's job to be driven to the edge of a nervous breakdown by the responsibilities of running the Pear.   Dave enjoys driving busses but has given up this career in public transport to go full time into the comedy industry.   He recently suffered a career setback when his car was written off by a bus.   He spends his holidays in his bed-sit with the central heating turned up full while trying to save up for a new car.

Stephen Carlin

Website

Stephen Carlin joined Pear Shaped as deputy deputy compere under the direction of Mr Dynamite but has now progressed to being deputy head of Knowing Better. It is his job to say he's not going to turn up... then turn up. He was disgusted by the wiring in the Pear – which he described as "Dickensian” even though in the era of Dickens there was not any electric light.   In 2007 Stephen was runner up in the BBC's new writer competition "Witty and Twisted". He has subsequently written on numerous radio programmes including "The News Quiz”,” The Now Show", "Recorded For Training Purposes", "Laura Solon Talking and Not Talking", "Look Away Now" and "Gus Murdoch's Sacred Cows" and has also worked as Stewart Lee's support act.

Stephen still shows up on spec regularly at the Pear – at least once every five years.

Jimbo

Review

After the resignation of Mr Dynamite there was something of a staff shortfall so the first Jimbo was elected head of Publicity.   It was his job to wander around the bar upstairs with a cardboard board on asking people with no idea what they are letting themselves in for to let themselves in.   This was a deeply degrading position and we were callously exploiting Jimbo, but Jimbo had had no real job in 15 years and since the social services have told him he no longer exists and can't claim the dole and he hasn't paid any tax or national insurance since the 1970s he had no choice and it was still show business. Jimbo spent a considerable time in the army and saw inactive service during the Cold War where he reached the rank of Cannon Fodder.   Wisely surmising that Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost policy might make soldiers targets once more he embarked on a new career as a pate salesman before marrying and becoming a household husband.   Jimbo has had several acts over the years... and has changed his style from shouting, to jumping out of the Comedy Brewhouse window to coughing to rambling stories to pithy one-liners.    He is widely admired as a true original by people reluctant to book him.    Recently he has retired from the Pear Shaped to concentrate on his new comedy character Tony Bournemouth. He was deputy deputy-deputy-compere.

Mike Belgrave

Website

During Mr Damage's second 6-month tenure at Pear Shaped in Australia Mr Miller poached Mr Belgrave from his position of Managing Director of the Troy Club to be head of Ethnic Minority Representation.   Being half-Irish, half-black and half-stupid it was his job to maintain our Arts Council Grant from the local council by representing as many ethnic and minority groups as possible.   His jobs involved sitting in the corner message texting his bits of fluff, sleeping with the women who are strangely attracted to the frigid Anthony Miller and continually slagging the gig off in an intensely boring and self-pitying internet blog.   So famous did this blog become that it has been removed from the Internet due to the large number of people who have threatened him with physical violence outside the Phoenix. As well as being our Boswell he was deputy deputy-compere.   He wrote of Pear Shaped in Time Out:   "I love doing this gig and they always ask me to perform when they've finished scraping the arse of the septic barrel.   Anthony Miller and my Satan worshipping self co-MC and plough our way through some of the most appalling acts in the capital."   In our defence ...erm ... Pear Shaped used to just book people in the order in which they rang up.   Following Mr Belgrave's nervous breakdown a review of booking policy was undertaken and we now try to encourage people who are funny to come back.   However, we still have a policy of giving everyone and anyone a gig. ………………………eventually.   If you have been wondering about the booking policy of the Pear, it is “Can you ring Brian?” People who can't ring Brian are never booked.   All Telexes, Telegrams, Faxes and carrier pigeons are also ignored.   Mike Belgrave can now be seen all over London and the UK - particularly at The Big Night Out where his "setting up the room skills" have proved invaluable.

Music club

Mike Manera

Webpage

Occasionally and in circumstances of dire need the great Mr Mike Manera has lowered himself to compere Pear Shaped. Mr Manera has a love/hate relationship with the Pear (actually it's mostly hate!).   His views differing from   "You really are a cunt Miller" to "Alright Miller.   I'll be your bitch this once."   Mr Manera "pisses on Mr Miller from a great height as a comedian, so FUCK YOU little man" and does not "play his little shithole of a club anymore (apologies to Brian & Krysstal, it's fun when you guys are there)", and does not book Mr Miller for his club because "the last time I saw him be funny was in 1973 (or something). OK, what I am saying is it was a long time ago)".   Mr Manera describes his evenings compering the Pear as an "awful experience.   I don't know how you can put yourself through it" which is in contrast to the public's reaction to Mr Manera's presence at the gig.   We can only conclude that these conflicting emotions are the result of a perfectionist spirit...   However, it should be pointed out that we don't know Mr Manera.   We really don't. He is, as Dickens might put it "deep as Australia . . . .If there was anything deeper, . . . he'd be it".   We've met briefly at a few gigs over the years but we definitely do not know him socially – at all!   As you may have surmised Mr Manera used to run a lot of gigs but these days he has achieved his aim of doing a lot of gigs instead and is consequently much more at peace with himself.    He bequeathed his promotional empire to Phil Klein who handed it over to Dizzy High who handed it over to Mr Manera who handed it to Alex Petty who …erm … still has the Goats Tavern.   Mr Manera is now a full time pro ready to “Megabus anywhere” so please write in if you have any suggesting of places for Mr Manera to go… I believe he also still has a gig in St Albans but more interestingly he also runs a music gig with Mike Belgrave (see above)

Andrew O'Neill

Website

Was head of Youth Representation.   It was his job to provide ass-[sic]-kicking original comedy.   After Mr Belgrave moved on to run the Piccadilly Comedy Club (now a restaurant) with Phil Klein, self-proclaimed anarchist Andrew inherited the Troy Club and Mr Miller would ask him if he would compere Pear Shaped as well some weeks. Unfortunately we are no longer able to afford him due to end of our Youth Training Scheme subsidy. However, Andrew still pops in about once a year and does 10 minutes for the collection of small change.   His hobbies include calling Winston Churchill a rapist and making sweeping and generalizations about politics.   He also enjoys asking policemen for their numbers and prostrating himself on the floor. He can be seen in Saxondale and at proper comedy clubs -   The big mainstream corporate ones where you would usually expect to find an anarchist.   His hobbies included not booking Mike Belgrave for the Troy Club because he was too mainstream.

John Mawer

website

Following on from Mr Belgrave's resignation Mr Miller asked him to recommend a replacement and John became head of philosophy.   It was his job to keep spirits up with his endless tales of his years in the comedic wilderness and prepare the open spots mentally for the inevitable failure that the gig (and often their careers) would be.   Mr Mawer is an exemplary example of how far you can get in this game if you keep giving up and having career breaks because you're a bit cheesed off.   He is famous for his work with Britain's best Improvisation outfits and is so good at improv that he has never been in The Laughing Cavaliers. He is deputy deputy deputy deputy sub-compere.   His hobbies are painting scenery and doing theatrical luvvie stuff.   His bouncer abilities are second to none.

Sabrina George

In an attempt to stop compere's committing suicide Mr Miller then invented the rotating compere system which in the early years of Pear Shaped involved Sabrina being shouted at.   When neither Mr Miller nor Mr Damage could be bothered to turn up she was allowed to use The Pear to practice her hour-long shows if she promised to fit an open spot in now and again.   She is another victim of the glass ceiling.    Sabrina now runs a website http://www.newcomedyradio.com/ Apparently " So far, as of Tuesday morning we have 262,000 hits from a zero on 20 August Sabrina would like to know if anyone would like to listen to it on Chortle?   Steve Bennett wont put a link on it or even mention it.   Even though he put the Ed Balls site up with a news feature after 26,000 hits!   Who says comedy is fair?"   If you like listening to comedians talking about themselves this is the link for you.

Pam Ford

Website

For a short while Pam was Head of Commuting. It was Pam's job to come help out in dire emergencies – even though this required stoic commuting.

Yariv Perelmuter

Yariv is Head of Negotiating his Fee

I couldn't find a website but here's a nice YouTube Clip

In the never ending quest to find people desperate enough to compere the Pear Mr Miller next turned to Yariv Perelmuter from Israel who "started as a comedy writer for sketches on television (1998) soon moved to perform Character comedy on TV and stage (1999-2001) did a few shows on channel 2 in Israel that hosts and commissions a lot of comedy related projects".   The one popular show he participated in is the 'Eli Yatzpan show"   where he did a range of characters in many sketches.   Then he did a show called - 'The Kamerite Five'?   For some reason he is also Dave Zonk who used to do a character called Grisha who has emigrated to England and started at the bottom again.... at the Pear.   No one knows quite why but it is something to do with figs.     In a recent publicity drive he invited the couple of Israeli embassy cultural affairs attaché to one of his gigs.  

"Either I offended him or he didn't like the attention because a while later I saw that he had walked out."

Roddy Fraser

webpage

Although he has compered occasionally Roddy's main position in the hierarchy was as chief opener.   It was Roddy's job to ring up at short notice and ask if he can open the show.   Roddy is famous for his role as compere of the Bath House / Dropping the Soap, his stacks of amazing material, his legendary bonhomie and his love of merrymaking.   Roddy's ambition is to make it big in cam cording.

Some of Roddy Fraser's early Films

And some later films

And some more recent

Unfortunately Roddy's flagship comedy club the Bath House was recently earmarked for demolition in order to make way for Crossrail.   Still as Karl Marx remarked to Frederick Engles when they were writing the communist manifesto in the Bath House bar because his wife had thrown him out the house for getting his maid pregnant and trying to pin the blame on Engles “you wont get more people to come to comedy clubs in the West End until you demolish large areas of Soho and provide their proprietors with pitiful financial compensation in the middle of the worst recession since the second world war even if that means destroying what people are supposed to be coming to see”.

Carrie-Anne Guthrie

website

Following a shortfall in the number of people stupid enough to compere the Pear during August because everyone in comedy is at the Fringe Mr Miller hired Carrie-Anne to compere because she asked and had jokes. Carrie-Anne is an ex-southern-American Policewoman.   In the USA, unlike in the UK, being a portly is no obstacle to police work since all policepersons are taught the Seth Geko method of self-defence: namely saying to your suspect “I've six little friends here all of whom can all run faster than you can”. Although not yet taught formally at Hendon this new kind of policing is now catching on all over London – particularly on the the Tube.   Carrie-Anne talks a lot about rednecks and is a lesbian…like in your dreams boys!

Tiernan Douieb

Tiernan runs a club called Fat Tuesday where he isn't fat (usually on a Tuesday).   He also has a car. Tiernan has compered the Pear Shaped once.   We have asked him back but he's always busy!

Gareth Berliner

Website

When he was 13, Gareth Berliner was diagnosed with Crohn's disease; which meant gradually surgeons hacked away at his intestines until today he needs a catheter in his chest to absorb fluids and nutrition.   Mr Miller has booked him to compere once or twice because he had theorised that this might mean he doesn't have to buy him a pint.   Unfortunately things didn't quite work out that way.   Gareth can be seen at lots of proper gigs.

Henning Wehn

Website

Hackney Empire new act of the Year Henning is our emergency emergency compere and was used to fulfil European Union Guidelines that every comedy club must contain at least one German.   However, there was an emergency that meant he never actually got to compere although he did turn up and sit in an empty room. Now we can't afford him. He can be seen on BBC TV explaining to us his language

Rob Deb

Website

Rob's job is to compere once in a blue moon and to know about superheroes. His job is to complain that he has never had a paid gig even though Mr Miller clearly remembers paying him a fiver at least once.

Jim Grant

Website

Jim is head of being mainstream.

It is Jim's job to come up from Eastbourne when we need someone responsible at the last minute who will make all the nutters look slightly normal in comparison. It is also Jim's job to run gigs in out of the way places.

Memorable acts who have appeared at Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia

(in the order that I remembered them)

Joel Elnaugh

Joel is head character act.    As a RADA graduate it is his job to impersonate someone who is a bit deluded – He used to have a regular spot at the Comedian's Graveyard (now deceased) judging the pick of new talent that had bothered to phone to get a slot.   His comments on Mr Miller are "I've seen him many times and he tends towards the same jokes several times whereas I like to see a bit more variety".   Joel has been variously described as "the future of comedy" Anthony Miller and "A Quality act, he'd be the first person I'd book to close. ...a club down" Dizzy High.   He was last seen on the televisual talent show “X-Factor” where Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh were of one mind on his potential to be the next big thing and now has a regular spot at theOOclub...

Persephone Lewin

webpage

Persephone's current act is a comedy striptease (suitable for children) assisted by Pere. the penguin, who plays a trumpet. It is clean, character comedy where Mme Fifi ends by playing a hosepipe.   'Refreshingly original. I've never seen anything like it.' Brandi Borr, director of Comedy Cabaret.   You may have seen her briefly on the opening credits of the first of the competition heats, which went out on BBC 3, 2003 or you may have read her articles in Practical Boat Owner, Britain's biggest selling yachting magazine. Her first book is to be published this year about her day job, which is matching injury marks on victims of murder with weapons.

Ivan Steward

Ivan was the founder of the Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia. That is to say he found the room and promptly decided not to perform there much for the next 9 years having almost immediately found a better room just round the corner at Wheatsheaf on a Saturday which became the Oxford Street Comedy Club.

Stewards career path before stand-up encompassed working as a fireman on the Flying Scotsman, before British Rail brought in diesel trains, and studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama where he auditioned with a tragic Shakespearean speech that provoked such mirth they offered him a place. Steward subsequently played the part of the prison goalkeeper in the film of 'Porridge'.   

Ivan The Comedy Referee

For many years he was the Comedy Referee before restyling himself a Comedy Traffic Warden before restyling himself as himself.    After a career break Mr Steward has recently started turning up at the Pear Shaped again.  

Toby Adams

Is the current head opener.

It is Toby's job to ring up last minute for a 5 spot.

Nik Coppin

Webpage

A very chatty act, whose conversational style is quick to build audience rapport, there's absolutely nothing to dislike from such an affable performer as Coppin except that he seems to have Pear Shaped confused with a socializing space instead of getting his arse up on stage.   Sometimes if he refused to perform Alan Wilde would tell his jokes for him.

Nik is one of the few acts to have done Pear Shaped in Fitrovia, Sydney, the Fringe, Turnmills and the Orwell.   I think he regards as as some kind of stamp collection.   He recently developed a show where comedians talk exclusively about their sexual proclivities

Dave Ward

Webpage

Dave is Head of unexpected visitations.

Although he doesn't materialise as much these days as he seems to always be compereing the Comedy Cafe on Wednesdays

Paulo Ferrari

is head of surrealism?

John Sharp

is head of props and puns. Thanks to www.thegagfactory.co.uk for this photo of him in full mime!

Andrew Wallace

Website

is head of Kittens

Robert White

Robert is head of asking us not to tell anyone he's actually funny. If you are the kind of punter who complains because he was listed then found a better paid gig that night

you may have liked to visit him at his own closed club the Electric Mouse Carnaby Street where you may also see the wonderful

Henry Ginsberg

Review

Our Head of Romance and being rung up at the last minute

Paul Ricketts & Verity Welsh

wander in sometimes and help fill in the last five minutes when they're not here

Pete Peterson & Pooh

are our overseas acts.

They make frequent visits to our shores from the US

but are currently involved in a one man and his bear campaign to

Beat the Butch

Steve Aruni and Henry the Hoover

Website

Steve and Henry

Are head of animatronics.

Robin Ince

Website

We don't see much of Robin any more but for a while in the mid '00s when he didn't have an agent and kept bumping into Mr Miller at the Chuckle Club and being talked into something he knew he really didn't want to be doing. Robin was head of quadrupling up until Mr Miller sent him an email suggesting that although technically it was possible for both us and him to fit us in between a Fringe preview show and a BBC recording it might be better for his own career to perhaps put Pear Shaped on the back burner for a while and concentrate on keeping the BBC happy. Fortunately he now has an agent to protect him from himself. We're not entirely sure why an atheist should want a publicity shot that makes them look like Saint Stephen but ...erm ... whatever turns you on...

Nick Revell

Website

Nick is head of dropping by the Pear whenever he's spent several years writing for radio and television and feels a bit rusty. Unfortunately he's not rusty at the moment so we can't afford him right now.

Brian Gittins

Website

Brian owns a roadside café down by Pyecombe. Brian has been told by loads of his customers that he's 'quite funny'. So in September 2005 he decided to get onstage and try and make people laugh. He was head of turning up at the Turnmills/Orwell. You can see him supporting Ricky Gervais and on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Deputy Heads of Turning up at the Orwell/Turnmills included

Orwell Turnmills

(From left to right)

Frank Sanazi & the Iraq Pack

Aliens Ate My Schnitzel

Ginger & Black

Moonfish Rhumba

The Teak Show

& many others too numerous to thank like

James Sherwood, Caroline Mabey

and the punter who was

John Fleming

Other Memorable Character Acts about the London Circuit

Peter Buckley-Hill

PBH

Peter Buckley-Hill is head of creating interesting political dilemmas from otherwise innocuous social situations. He is a man who stands up for himself and cannot be sat on who co-created the “PBH/Laughing Horse Free Fringe” which was triumphant in a slightly acrimonious way a bit like the “SDP/Liberal Alliance”.   He was their David Owen.   He now runs the "Free Fringe" alone.   His hobbies include sitting in the front row at the front of poorly attended open mike nights and being insulted beyond belief when any compere or act deigns to break the 4th wall and communicate with him from the stage.

Alex Petty

Website

Is one of the few other London promoters other than ourselves is who isn't ashamed to admit they still book open spots unseen and runs the Laughing Horse Empire and the Free Festival. He also runs a very successful new act competition with a £1000 prize.

We have thought of doing this but been put off by the fact we have a prize fund of some small change in Barbados Dollars and a 1,000 lira note.

Phil Klein

Was for many years our Chief Competitor

However he has now retired to spend more time with his personality

James D'Chapeau as Jim Woroniecki

James D'Chapeau first played the Pear Shaped as himself.   However, after many years of having moved on from Pear Shaped he turned up one week in character as "comedy promoter Mr Woroniecki" professing to have forgotten gig existed and to be looking for rooms to put a “poetry gig” on in. When Mr Miller pointed out that he wasn't that keen on the idea because of the fact that he was a full time professional comedy promoter and he feared waking up to find himself without a club, Mr Woroniecki confessed some sadness that Mr Miller had such a bleak view of human nature which amused us all intensely.   Sadly there is as yet still no poetry evening at the Fitzroy Tavern but we will keep you posted. Mr Woroniecki currently runs a few small 99 CLUB nights at slightly larger rooms like “Storm”.

Martin Besserman

Martin is head of Bullying Acts into Bring at least 2 Mates (more is better)!

Unlike us Mr Besserman thinks it is not acceptable to pull or postpone an open mike night for lack of people being interested in watching new acts die on their arse.   Since sometimes acts come from as far a field as Brighton it is just not acceptable they come into a room of 5 people and the solution to this is insisting they come from Brighton with two mates each generating a guaranteed net income of £140 a week (approx £600 a month) and an enormous carbon footprint rather than run their own gig in Brighton.   If the bar only had a handful of people to a gig they would chuck Martin out and as he needs to make a bit of money to pay bills and has no other income coming in other from comedy it is only fair that open spots should support him.   After all it is well known "Bringer shows" made the New York comedy scene the vibrant place it is today.

Since one day we might want a gig off some of the people we put on we are unable to work to Mr Besserman's business model but we are glad there is someone out there heartlessly and callously bullying open spots into bringing mates for us by proxy. Everyone who performs at Pear Shaped is allowed one friend for free. We don't need acts with mates – we are well attuned to performing to no one. All we are after is acts with jokes (preferably that aren't racist, homophobic or misogynistic or someone else's!) Extremely Successful Acts who have done, mentioned or been at Pear Shaped

(In order of celebrity)

Stewart Lee

Stewart is head of keeping a low profile. It is Stewart's job to keep a low profile and not have to flee the country because of death threats. Stewart sometimes comes to Pear Shaped at Midnight because he knows that the Management of Pear Shaped are laid back and in no way social climbing and he can keep a low profile without people continually pointing at him and saying “There's Stewart Lee” or people pointing digital cameras at him or us trying to milk him for every iota of publicity we an eek out of him. One of the people in this photo might be Stewart Lee but we're not telling you which one because we're afraid of Christian Voice and are big pussies.   That's why we don't book him often. It's got nothing to do with us just not being in his league.   No not at all. That's a slander put about by Stephen Green.

Stewart recently said in The Evening Standard “It's amazing that from the smallest pub club, such as Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia to the O2, you are basically seeing the same kind of show.” Indeed he is right. Both venues are extremely similar in style and presentation.

Christopher Graham Collins

Christopher is deputy head of keeping a low profile. It is his job to be surrounded by glum Channel 4 executives and not be commented on. You cannot read about the Pear Shaped Comedy Club in his autobiography ISBN 0099426870

The Bloomsbury Group

Website

The Bloomsbury group was a literary group that made the Fitzroy Tavern the centre of its activities from 1904 to World War II. It included Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E. M. Forster, Vita Sackville-West, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Mike Manera and John Maynard Keynes. The group began as a social clique: a few recent Cambridge graduates and their closest friends would assemble on Thursday nights for drinks and conversation. Its members were committed to a rejection of what they felt were the strictures and taboos of Victorianism on religious, artistic, social, and sexual matters. They remained a fairly tight-knit group for many years; recent biographers have detailed their tangled personal relations. By the 1920s Bloomsbury's reputation as a cultural circle was fully established to the extent that its mannerisms were parodied and the Phoenix Bar opened.   Bloomsbury became a widely used term connoting an insular, snobbish aestheticism. Unique in the brilliance, variety, and output of its members, the group has remained the focus of widespread scholarly and popular interest.   It was in the very same room Pear Shaped now inhabits that Vita Sackville-West first suggested gassing poor people.

Charlie Chaplin

Many famous comedians started out at the Pear Including Charlie Chaplin who was so impressed with what Mr Miller could do with the spoken word that he went on to make himself famous in a silent medium.

I think that's a lot of people but I cant possibly list EVERYONE who's made an important contribution to the Pear.

So thank you to everyone else!

ANNOUNCEMENT

Thanks to

Comedy CV