As I do every year, a couple of days before New Year’s Eve, I stand in the shower and remember that I must get round to writing a summary of the year that has gone, knowing full well that I will leave it all to the last minute.
Dripping in the warm rain of the shower, the process is always the same - What the hell have I done this year? And like every year, there's the slow realisation that quite a lot has happened.
So here I am, at the last minute, writing a quick look back on 2025
The year with a flying trip to Latvia. The little one and I went to catch up with the eldest who had been working there. Always fun to be back in Eastern Europe: Austere Soviet architecture mixed with fancy Old World pomp, a wander round the market trying to identify which part of the innards the Babushkas were selling, Holocaust museums, borscht in a utilitarian cafe, then hot chocolate in a fancy hipster joint. Is there a better way to start the year? Bloody cold in January though.
In Februrary I moved to a new place in the centre of town. Apart from realising that, after signing the contract, the flat didn’t have any doors, followed by a bout of COVID the week I was moving, I think I made a good buy. Pop over for coffee if you are in the area!
I had planned to hit the ground running in 2026 after completing the previous autumn’s course in ‘Concept Development in the Culture Sector’ but was quickly reminded that Linköping ain’t the place for concepts, development or culture, so had a bit of a rethink. Luckily, my ‘Varannan Vecka’ life in Stockholm was much more inspiring with more work at On Air. 2025 was the year for intense weeks in Stockholm, followed by more passive, WFH weeks in Linköping, along with more inspiring trips away.
Much of March was spent in Denmark, thanks to a grant from Culture Moves Europe. The goal was partly to meet other comedians and see how clubs are run in Denmark. Blitzed the gigs including some of my favourites of the year, and also met a bunch of really great people in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Malmö.
I was also there to research and perform my show Elephant Riot! As all real elephant fans know, the story reaches its denouement in Copenhagen, where the Elephant meets his untimely demise! (SPOILER!)
I did some research at the National Library, or as it is known in common Copenhagen parlance ‘The Black Diamond’ - Only the Danes could make a bibliotek sound like a Spanish Galleon captained by Blackbeard.
I performed the show to a tiny, but brilliant audience. Before the show, I had designs on my performance being so inspiring, I would be given the Keys to the Christiania and get a lifetime supply of copies of The Little Mermaid. However, I'm very happy to have been well received, made some people laugh and be able to say that the show had been performed ‘internationally’.
From the heights of Copenhagen, and back in Sweden, a week later I performed the show in Skänninge to a sold out crowd in the actual room where the elephant was kept, in the building where the Elephant Riot took place. Unlike the Elephant’s visit in 1806, all the windows of the Skänninge Town Hall remained unsmashed after my performance. I also got to perform Elephant Riot at the Midsommar Comedy Festival and the Lund Comedy Festival. There will be more elephant action in 2026, as I will do the show again at the Västerås Comedy Festival and I am still trying to get the story down in some sort of book form!
I should also thank Conrad Molden, who after watching him do his walking tour of Copenhagen, convinced me that I should start doing the same in Stockholm. And so I have been doing walking tours of Stockholm Old Town since then, as a bit of an (occasionally lucrative) side gig. I now also know rather too much about Karl XII and Gustav III
Popped over to Amsterdam in April to visit my cousin and it felt like such a relaxing city to be in full of life and character. Highlight was visiting the STRAAT museum in North Amsterdam, an old ship hall filled with enormous art. Also managed to get a proper beach holiday in to Mallorca with the kids! Sun, sea and too many tourists, but decent food and falling asleep near the sea makes it all worth it!
Laughing Stock, the English comedy club rolled on into the spring down at The Liffey. I was happy with it there, but it wasn’t quite right for what I wanted to do with the night. However things were about to change on the comedy front!
In May I signed a contract with FKP Scorpio Sweden to become their International Comedy Promoter, in essence a dream job that involves trying to convince international comedians to come to Sweden. And that’s more or less what I’ve been focussing on since then.
I went over to the Edinburgh Festival to make contacts and watch shows. Exhausting but exhilarating to spend a week in the city during the Fringe. I watched about five shows per day and managed to catch up with a load of old friends and make lots of new contacts, some of whom I have convinced to come to Sweden in 2026. Game Changer for Edinburgh was that I hired a bike for the week, got around the city quicker than ever before, and possibly came back fitter and stronger thanks to the hills!
It feels so great to have some momentum in the comedy world with a decent sized company behind me. Most of the bookings I made in 2025 will start being seen in Sweden in 2026 and Laughing Stock is now being produced under the FKP Scorpio aegis. All I need now is for audiences to buy tickets! (Please buy tickets!)
What more for 2025? It’s been a decent year - I have more or less found a rhythm in life and it’s good to be part of some larger teams which is perhaps most tangibly observed in being invited to two corporate Christmas parties involving group cooking and curling. You don’t do group cooking and curling as a lonely freelancer!
So here’s to 2026! More comedy, more creativity (Get that Elephant on paper), more reading, more exercise and fresh air, less screen time!
Happy New Year one and all!