WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BEANUS LIVE?

Afternoon, y’all!

So… we’ve had a query as to what happened to us doing a Beanus Live show.

Ultimately, Harrow Arts was booked out until next year. We did look at alternative venues, but the truth is… nothing else felt right. Too big, too small, didn’t have a bar, didn’t have a place for you to all congregate before and after, had rubbish transport links… We got very lucky with Harrow Arts (not least because it’s local to us, so we could go all-out with props and costumes).

Instead, as a number of people had earmarked the date in September, we decided to take some of you ghost-hunting with us instead. Which we’re very much looking forward to.

Howeverrrr… there are rumblings that something else might be happening in late-September or October which might give you all a chance to get together. I can’t say more than that for now – not least because we’re not organising it – but stay tuned.

NEXT YEAR

Now… you may be asking… why haven’t we just gone ahead and booked Beanus Live or a new Digi Live for next year? Alas, it’s not a straightforward answer.

Firstly, at one point there were plans for some sort of big Cheapshow Live in 2026. I’ve not asked Gannon if he’s still going ahead with that or not, but obviously there’s still crossover with both audiences. There’s simply not room for both in one year. And I’m not sure there’s room for them to run in consecutive years either, to be honest, based upon last time.

Plus there’s the issue of… we’ve kind of changed our content. We’ve yet to work out how we’d do a show based upon what we’re doing now, or if anyone would even come to one.

Now of course Bubblegun is us reclaiming the nonsense we used to do on the main channel, and though it’s doing well for a new podcast, it’s still early days, and hasn’t really built up an audience yet that would support a live show of the sort we used to do.

We’re watched by more people now on the main channel, but the sense we get is that the hardcore – you lovely lot! – is smaller than it used to be. We can’t even rely on the retro community like we once did, given that Digi Level 2 only did okay… and that whole community has sort of fragmented and gone wrong in the head, thanks to various factors.

So, between all that and everyone being on different social media platforms, we can’t guarantee we’d even sell enough tickets for somewhere like Harrow Arts (and, again, we’ve tried looking for smaller places, and just can’t find anywhere we like as much).

BUT ALSO...

Then there is a kind of more personal issue, which – without wanting to go into masses of detail – means I’m in a somewhat different place to earlier this year when we both got excited about the notion of Beanus Live.

Bottom line: the last couple of years have at last taken their toll, as I knew they would eventually, and in the past few months all the grief and anxiety I’d been storing up has finally floated to the surface.

After my dad died, all my job and money worries, all that loss, had to be pushed aside to focus on caring for my mum. It was a chaotic and profoundly stressful few years, and my sisters and I didn’t have time for us. Now that things have calmed down somewhat, it’s inevitable we’re feeling stuff we simply didn’t have the time for before.

My mum is still hanging in there – somehow – though we’re finding it harder and harder as time goes on, and being blunt… we don’t know how long she has. We’re all in this sort of strange limbo where we’re just waiting. Again, we don’t know what the next year will bring in terms of her health.

Consequently, I’m struggling a bit at the moment, to be honest. I don’t want to book something unless I know I’m going to be able to go through with it. Even socialising with friends or family is pretty hard for me right now. I’ve a tight knot in my gut, because I've somehow ended up with a busy month ahead in terms of doing social things that I arranged before everything hit me. Now I'm regretting saying yes to so much, and I'm treading carefully.

The notion of being in a big crowd – where I have to be “on” – fills me with utter terror.

Making videos, doing podcasts – even filming the ghost hunt in September with a small group – are all fine somehow, but I just don’t have the capacity for more at the minute. My energy resources are pretty limited, and I’m trying to conserve them as much as possible and not do things where I end up feeling worse, or that deplete me.

It’s the Cheapshow birthday live stream tonight – you’ll see a brief video message from me if you’re watching – and though I was asked to be involved, I just couldn’t face doing more.

It'll pass. These things do. It’s a process and I’ll come out the other side sooner or later. It’s all natural, inevitable, life stuff, given everything, so nothing to worry about.

A Beanus Live show – heck, even a limited tour – is on my bucket list to get done before I get too old for it, so I’m sure it’ll happen eventually. In spite of all this, we’re really missing the community all coming together, so we’re going to keep trying to find small ways to do that until we’re ready for something more substantial. Again: watch this space…!

Paul