For years I whinged about how there's no decent variety shows on TV any more, about how all I wanted to be a part of - hell, all I wanted to be in the audience of - was a knock-down, drag-out, no-apologies West End variety show. Sadly for me, they haven't really existed since the 70's.
So I got a little money together (Thanks Unum!), called a few of my friends, who luckily, happen to be some of the greatest comedy and variety performers on the planet, and put on a series of shows.
Every month, live from the Leicester Square Theatre, I host Mat Ricardo's London Varieties. It's the show I have always wanted to watch, and it's a bit of a childhood dream come true to actually be in charge of it. There are surprises, special guests, one-time only collaborations... What I'm trying to say is that it's fun, and a lot of it.
And since there are no variety shows on TV any more, I have a crew film the whole thing, and we make it into a TV show for the internet, for anyone to watch for free and share with their friends.
The most recent show (as seen above) features an interview with a certain ex-street performer named Eddie Izzard, alongside performances from Piff the Magic Dragon, Original Street Dance and octogenarian one-line king Michael Pearse - plus there are a couple of routines from yours truly.
It's a labour of love - truly a lesson in taking the energy I was spending on moaning about the lack of variety and focusing that into actually making some!
The live show helps to support the creation of the web TV shows, and the next live London Varieties is next Thursday, 27th of June, at 9.30pm. There's no substitute for seeing the most amazing circus, comedy and variety stars do their thing right before your very eyes, so if you'd like to come, click here for more information, or click here to book tickets.
Oh, and if you'd like to listen to the full, 40 minute long interview with Eddie Izzard, you can find it here.