12 AUGUST 2026

Hello, team.

Welcome to another edition of Pretend Post. Coming to you live from Bristol where I’m on day three of an amazing improv intensive with a talented bunch of good eggs.

Bristol is such a beautiful city and I’m very glad to be back. Also, today there’s going to be a partial eclipse of the sun (although I gather this won’t be confined solely to Bristol).

In other non-celestial news, here are the things that I’m enjoying this week.

Rule of three

[Theatre] Cyrano de Bergerac
I first watched Cyrano, played by the late great Antony Sher, when I was 17 years old. It absolutely transformed me. I fell in love with the long-nosed warrior poet, confident in all things except talking to girls (which felt very relevant to me as a teenager in the 90s). This new version with Adrian Lester is written in conjunction with the poet Debris Stevenson, and it benefits hugely from her exceptional facility with words. It’s funnier than I remember too. And profoundly lovely.

I see you as you deserve
to see the sky, skin soaking the gold in
thorns and all. The earth -
muddy, rocks and worms. The courage,
wit and wonder of re-birth. Rain settles.
Feather against bark. Roots crack stone.
Roxane. Roxane.
Everywhere I hear your name.
And repeat it. Breath practising
The shape of what comes next.

[Crafting] Bobby Fingers
I don’t want to over-sell this, or over-explain it. But it’s the sort of brilliant, ultra-specific eccentric endeavour that the internet used to excel at. Follow one artist as he creates crafting projects around the exploits of problematic men in excruciating detail. A diorama of Mel Gibson getting arrested for drunk driving. A fully-working row boat that’s also a sculpture of Jeff Bezos’ head. Thanks, once again, to Tom Mathias for the recommendation, at this point he’s basically a sub-editor for the newsletter.

[Music] Daughter from Hell
This is an album that came out THIS YEAR. 2026. I know. It’s pretty hard being this cutting edge. Anyway, Daughter from Hell is by Gracie Abrams and it has nice songs on it. That’s the extent of my musical criticism. My favourites are Hit the Wall and Look at My Life.

Spotlight

Nottingham’s Robin Hood International Improv Festival is approaching fast, an absolute cultural gem of the UK improv scene, led and curated by friend-of-the-newsletter, Lloydie James Lloyd, friend-to-all-humanity Aree Witoelar and friend-of-Parsnip-the-dog, Liam Webber.

My recommendation is to go to the whole thing (I’ve taken the entire week off improv so I can go and do improv there) but if that’s not possible, The Pretend Company will be performing on Saturday 5th September and we’d love to see you.

Radio contact

Radio, a cuter dog, I cannot imagine.