ABOUT THIS SITE

This is a website all about Gary Le Strange, a comedy pop star character created by the actor, writer, comedian and composer Waen Shepherd, as a means of being able to practise the disciplines of acting, writing, music and comedy all at once. Waen (that’s me) has written and created it all by himself (that’s myself).

So what’s this site all about?

Basically he’s a pop star in the mould of the early 1980s New Romantics, though he has been known to diversify into other genres. I started performing under that name in March 2002, building up to a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2003, which won me the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer. That then led to two more Edinburgh shows, regular appearances on various radio shows like Out To Lunch and The Day The Music Died, several albums (all of which I produced myself) and the occasional video. Not to mention countless live sets. It was a full-time job for about five years, before I had to start doing other things instead, after which appearances became sporadic and the act gradually dwindled to a crumpled nothingness.

OK then - tell me about Gary Le Strange

You mean the dwindling to nothing? Yes, I suppose it’s pretty sad. I had all kinds of dreams and hopes for the act, but after half a decade of pretending to be a person who wasn’t actually me, I felt I needed to try to remember who I used to be before I lost all sense of reality. Besides, it cost me more than I ever earned from it and I couldn’t generally get it to work outside the rarified atmosphere of London character comedy clubs and the occasional Fringe show. So it was destined to die. But its death did leave behind a lingering sense of unfinished business - a sense that I hadn’t quite achieved what I set out to achieve. It also left behind a messy picture, a rags-to-rags story with a clear beginning and end but not much clarity in the middle. Which has led me here, I suppose, thinking back to the days when I was Gary Le Strange and wondering what the hell it was all about. Hence this website, on which I hope I might be able to make sense of it all.

That sounds terrible…

Oh. Well in that case, this website isn’t for you. Unless you want to spend some time studying how rubbish it all is, which might be a good idea if you want to avoid the same fate.

No, I meant the act. It sounds rubbish

Not really. Except that it’s a work in progress, so don’t expect the whole story to emerge all at once. I’m basically approaching it on a song by song basis, writing about each song until they’re all more or less written about. And I wrote a lot of songs, so it’s going to take me a while.

OK. Anything else I need to know?

He’s a comedy pop star! Of course there are songs. Generally very silly ones.

There are songs?

Great! If that sounds like your cup of tea, might I suggest you start here? Just one song for now, but more will magically appear as the months roll by…

That sounds more like it!