Sam Freeman is a writer and storyteller. He is bringing his new show Every Time I Close My Eyes, All I See Is You to our Cellar Theatre next month.
Get to know the man behind the show in our interview with Sam where we chatted about Sam’s visit to ours last year with his show Every Little Hope You Ever Dreamed (But Didn’t Want To Mention), all things performing, cake…lots of cake, and of course his brand-new show.
How was it performing at Lawrence Batley Theatre last year?
I’ll be honest I always find it a struggle to write about my own shows and tours – I’m never quite sure what to say....
I could write about the fact that Lawrence Batley Theatre is my favourite tour venue. On my last tour I had the best gig of the entire tour in the basement. It was a mix of an audience who were attentive and responsive, but also one person who had an amazing snort-laugh that was frankly a delight (I wanted them at all my gigs).
Last time I was here I also learnt that I really like Huddersfield – I’d never really visited before and, truth be told, I had a tricky gig in Halifax a month before I performed last time so was nervous as hell, particularly as I was doing a few nights. Turns out everyone was friendly, I spent an outrageous amount of time in the Northern Tea House eating the best cake and found that audiences were just universally happy, and refreshingly blunt and honest.
I ended up, a few months ago, performing at the brilliant spoken word night Attic Stories, getting to see some of the astonishingly talented local performers get on stage and share their brand new work – it was magical and warm and welcoming (particularly the Batley Poets who I’d recommend a thousand times over).
Of course the problem with saying any of that is that it easily comes across as sycophantic, so, clearly, not something I could say.
What can audiences expect from your new show?
It’s storytelling. Imagine if BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime was on stage, or maybe that it’s a live Audible recording. It’s that sort of thing. I read from a little red book, control all the sound and music and tell a story about, amongst other things, why jigsaws are bought by sadistic people, the problem with Jools Holland and, of course, growing older. It lasts 69 minutes and is (I hope) sweet and occasionally poignant and occasionally funny.
I wrote it over the last couple of years (including one scene in Northern Tea House while eating cake). Oh and my show is really low-cost – deliberately – we (me and the team at Lawrence Batley Theatre) wanted to do a show where cost was less of a barrier – so you can take a risk and the worst case scenario is that you’ll spend a fiver on a show that gets you thinking (and maybe you’ll like it…).
That’s great, thank yo-
By the way, I’ve just been on your website.
What?
To see what else is on. I thought I could recommend some other shows, that people might like, in case they can’t come to mine.
I mean that’s not usually how these posts work…
Consider the rules broken! So if you can’t come to see my show (which you should) then you should check out one of these five shows instead:
- Courtyard Stories – Mon 21 August
I mentioned the Attic Stories earlier on – they’re doing a gig in the courtyard and I genuinely can’t imagine anything better than a nice cold pint (non-alcoholic version for me), a seat in the courtyard as the sun warms my back, listening to these wonderous wordsmiths forge a mix of funny, poignant and touching poetry and spoken word, sending it into the summer evening. - Comedy In The Courtyard – Thu 24 August
Rob Rouse is one of my favourite comedians – he’s probably the funniest comic I’ve ever seen perform – I saw a clip of him doing a gig dressed as (and pretending to be) the Angel Of The North (outside Newcastle) and it had me in tears. Also Dawn Bailey who is also on is terrific – I’m 90% sure she beat me in a comedy competition 10 years ago. She was good then, she’ll be amazing now! - The Elton John Show – Fri 30 June
You totally didn’t see that one coming right? Name an act with more rock-solid, gold-plated, cult-classic songs (excluding The Beatles obviously). I actually saw this show a few years ago and I desperately wanted to hate it, and then I sang along to Crocodile Rock like a madman and loved every moment. - LASH – Wed 12 July
I’ve not seen this but it’s on my MUST SEE list for Edinburgh Festival. The company has had amazing reviews and it looks great. Mostly though, I think I want to see it because when I was growing up in Scarborough (100 times better than Whitby or Bridlington before anyone says anything) we’d ring our mates to see if they were going “out” – the response was always “Out? Or out out?”. The former meant a pint in the town Wetherspoons (we were young), the latter meant that at 3am I’d be eating pizza walking the 5 miles back home because I’d spent my taxi money (on pizza). - John Robins: Howl – Mon 23 October
This is nearly sold out. John is one of the great comedians – I was lucky enough to be able to see 2 of his first shows in Liverpool at Unity Theatre years ago and he wrote the cleverest, funniest material, but also had that effortless look when on stage and talking to an audience. He makes it look so easy. Brilliance.
But people should see your show too?
Oh definitely. Book mine first, then book loads of other shows second. You won’t regret it.
Sam’s new show Every Time I Close My Eyes, All I See Is You is heading to our Cellar Theatre next month on Mon 24 July.
