RIP: Heath Ledger

Oh dear, another one passes on - and I fear we have another River Phoenix on our hands.

I don't think I've seen any of his blockbusters, such as The Patriot, but I did enjoy 10 Things I Hate About You and Two Hands. And despite hating Brokeback Mountain with a vengeance, it wasn't the fault of the performances: Ledger and Gyllengaal did their best with a problematic narrative and lousy editing.

Meanwhile, I look forward to his Joker and Tod Haynes's spin on Bob Dylan, I must add Monster's Ball to the Sofa list, and this is surely another example of the Curse of Gilliam: they have been filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus together. Oh dear.

Phil Nichol, "Hiro Worship"

I'd never heard of this comedian, but he won one of the if.comeddies - what used to be a Perrier Award - at the Edinburgh Fringe. He's also Canadian - which might interest some people round these parts, although apparently he was born in Scotland and lives in London. I'd not heard of Corky and the Juice Pigs, but "I'm The Only Gay Eskimo" rang a bell (unlike the REM parody.) [He's lost weight since these.]

I thought I'd give him a go, and got a ticket a couple of days earlier for the Carbuncle (as Nichol calls it). Me and about 25 others. The auditorium was seriously empty - perhaps the lack of audience awareness, perhaps as the first night of a tour? Things were not helped by the bass guitar having been left behind in London, the electric guitar being out of tune and the drummer dropping his sticks in the opening number.

The first half - what should be a support act - was just Nichols, telling stories and branching nicely. A number of them invoke homosexuality or play with race, and tightrope though being homophobic and racist (why is talking about or simulating sex funny in itself, and gay sex triply so?). And don't sit at the front. But he was amusing enough for half an hour.

The second half was "Hiro Worship", seventy minutes of an anecdote about meeting a Japanese fan of the Rolling Stones, attempting to introduce him to the Stones and then blowing a meeting with Jerry Hall. Funny enough, and the songs were reasonably good, but I was left feeling, "So what?" But the crowd size probably did not help. Some shrewd observations, but it was missing something and had a moral slapped on the end.