JC Lamb

Stage comedy: full-length plays with small casts, for touring companies and amdram groups, and performance pieces designed for auditions and speeches. As used by LAMDA and other drama schools.

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Serious plays of different lengths with small casts, for touring companies, amdram groups, radio and readings.

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Short performance poems, nearly all comic, for speeches, auditions, revues and drama students. As performed by stars of stage and screen, and used by teachers of English as a foreign or native language.

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Serious plays of different lengths with small casts, for touring companies, amdram groups, radio and readings. 'The Drama of the Graf Spee' ran for several years in English and Spanish.

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Top-end tournament-size backgammon checkers in stainless steel, with leather to order, or beech and Patagonian rosewood. As sold by luxury games manufacturers for over £1000 a set.

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Sketches, illustrations and cartoons in black and white.

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Original music for use with stage and screen productions

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Voiceovers from award-winning TV and radio ads, documentaries and full-length films

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The Montevideo Hoop: used for 15 years in croquet tournaments on carpeted pitches in Uruguayan and British schools, with the outplayer holding the top bar for hard shots. Currently seeking a UK manufacturer.

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Original artwork in black and white.

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COMEDY WRITING

‘Delightful…found myself laughing aloud’
(John Julius Norwich)
‘V.funny’ (Warren Mitchell)
‘I fell on the flore laughing’ (Anon, age 10)
‘Wonderful. Wonderful’ (Jenny Hanley, BBC)
‘The whole family enjoyed them’ (Cherie Blair)
‘For my money, Britain’s funniest living poet’ (Sandy Warr, LBC)

PERFORMANCE

‘Golden’ (Harold Hobson, Sunday Times)
‘More than useful’ (Michael Billington, Guardian)
‘Really funny. Amazing characterisation. Engaging and entertaining. I think it’s due to the richness of the characters’
‘Brilliant! Loved every minute!’
‘Wonderful delivery – first class’
(Marlowe Theatre feedback)

TWO WEEKS TO LIVE

I’ve been told I’ve got two weeks to live.
Two weeks, if I heard the report right.
But don’t fear for my life:
It’s just that my wife
Is going away for a fortnight.

* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.

FUN FOR SPEAKERS, ACTORS, TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AND ALL WHO ENJOY THE SPOKEN WORD

About this site:
jclamb.com is mainly a quarry of comic performance pieces designed for speeches, revues and auditions. They come from ten books of comedy material published between 1989 and 2022. Also on the site are serious plays, journalistic pieces, illustrations, voice recordings, original music for stage and screen, toy/game inventions and backgammon accessories. All of this material is copyright, and the performance pieces and plays involve performance or broadcasting rights, but readers and drama students are welcome to use them for non-commercial purposes. Since the Verse page contains recordings of poems as well as the full text, like the one read here by Martin Jarvis, teachers of English may find them useful for foreign or native students. There are three printed books which are for sale via mail@jclamb.com: Peculiar Poems, The Ugly Baby and Speaky Stuff. A random selection of short comic pieces, changing regularly, appears below. To see new material, check out the lower panel. You can also sign up to receive a free periodic newsletter (with no advertisements or fire-hydrant botchecks) containing recent material that has featured on the site. If you enjoy voice acting and would like to submit a good-quality MP3 recording of any performance piece on the verse page that hasn’t been recorded already, feel free! It will go up on the ‘Music and Voice’ page within 10 days if accepted.

About the originator:
Jonathan Charles Lamb is a poet, playwright, satirical journalist, cartoonist and voice actor who specialises in writing performance comedy and historical tragedy. In the UK he has appeared on stage at the Bradford Playhouse, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury and the Salisbury Festival, where for several years he did literary standup with the choir Sarum Voices. Actors who have recorded his work include Prunella Scales, Jim Carter, Timothy West, Robert Hardy and Dame Imelda Staunton. On moving to Uruguay in 2004, Jonathan ran theatre tours of the Southern Cone by professional British actors, and for the last ten years has edited a satirical e-magazine called The Magpie. Since the 2000’s he has featured in some 70 TV and radio ads, one of which won bronze at Cannes in 2015. His full-length film work includes the voice of Charles Darwin in Darwin’s Corner and two nature documentaries by Guillermo Kloetzer. Most recently he has voiced two natural history series for Netflix. As a backgammon addict and ex-croquet player, holder of a world doubles title in 1996, Jonathan Lamb invented and marketed the free-standing Montevideo Hoop, which allows croquet to be played on artificial surfaces like hockey pitches. Hoop production was halted by COVID and Jonathan is now looking for a UK manufacturer. Currently dividing his time between Uruguay and East Kent, his hobbies are playing backgammon on the excellent site www.backgammonhub.com, inventing toys and games, playing competitive darts and helping his daughter Maria make luxury backgammon checkers.

CLICK ON THE FACES BELOW TO HEAR THESE ACTORS PERFORM POEMS FROM 'THE UGLY BABY'

SELECTION OF SHORT COMIC PIECES (CHANGES REGULARLY)

DO YOU STILL WORK?

Yes, I still work
More or less
Though there are moments
In the early morning
When frankly I sometimes doubt it

But on the whole
I still work, yes
Parts of me better than
Others maybe, but it’s my body
And I wouldn’t be without it

* 🎧 Click below to hear this piece in performance.

NEW MATERIAL

FERBILS

Where’s that cat
And what’s it doing?
Thought so: on the carpet,
Spewing

Next time we should
Get some gerbils
At least gerbils
Don’t get ferbils

LETTER TO THE TIMES, 17 AUGUST 2025

Eat Well Before Bedtime

Sir, Those of us who like to dine late, off a side of beef, a couple of capons
and a butt of claret, will take heart from an article in the Guardian last Saturday,
advocating that for a good night’s sleep one should eat well before bedtime.

Yours etc

CARTOON

CROQUET HOOPS

The Montevideo© hoop is available at £35 or 60 USD, plus P&P (costing on application, as it varies by weight and destination). Made of solid iron and designed for winter practice/friendly games on artificial surfaces, the Montevideo© turns almost any all-weather hockey or football pitch into several croquet courts. Practising on fast, flat surfaces over the winter improves your game no end. The upper crossbar is designed to prevent the feet from spreading and to allow the hoop to be held by an outplayer for hard shots; but the good news is that on the outdoor sanded carpet shown above, rover can be run with enough force for the ball to go out, from anywhere within two feet of the hoop and within an arc of about 60° in front of it, without the hoop needing to be held (as in the photo below: yellow started where blue is).

This permits solo practice while encouraging precise approach skills. Montevideo© hoops are highly portable, can be installed in seconds and can be used on most all-weather surfaces without leaving a lasting mark. To order hoops, or to see and hear a QuickTime film of rover being run, send an e-mail to mail@jclamb.com.

The Mini-Monte© is designed for practising hoop approaches
and hoop-running indoors. The pins are shorter than the outside version
but still grip the carpet well without damage. The hoop is solid iron, and can be
run gently from most angles without being knocked over.

Price: £19.99 plus p&p depending on number and total weight:
feel free to consult mail@jclamb.com.

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