So…We’re going to be stopping the channel for a while. A decision that im personally absolutely devastated by, and one that I have not taken lightly. But if your reading this, odds are you already know this and have come here for a little bit more context. 

The honest answer is, 2023 is just over 7 months of the way complete, and this year has been quite possibly the worst year i’ve experienced in a VERY long time. But thats for a few reasons, that somehow all have manifested independently, and have also impacted every aspect of my day to day life to the extent that, at this point, im pretty much paralyzed from making content. So lets start from the top, and then i’ll explain what all this means in real terms. 

As many people may (or may not) know, I work very far in advance with producing my content. In fact, the season thats just finished (January – June 2023) was actually initially planned in August of 2022 and was more or less fully written, recorded and largely edited by December 2022. Because of this, Everything thats happened since February of 2023 has pretty much gone unnoticed because, the show was all premade before the shit hit the fan. 

In January of 2023 a recurring health issue of mine suddenly got significantly worse. I’ve been suffering from chronic sore throats and tonsillitis now on and off for AT LEAST 10 years. But up until this year it was manageable. It would come and go and there’d be enough time between incidents for me to record for a bit, then edit in the downtime. Around mid January, It suddenly and sharply deteriorated. My throat became sore, and basically never recovered. I went to the doctors in mid February ‘23 and basically from there things have spiralled. 

Its difficult to say honestly exactly whats going on, depending on who you ask I’ve either been dealing with one case of Tonsillitis for 5 and a half months at this point, or 4 separate instances that just so happened to perfectly overlap with each other in such a way as theres no breaks (got to love Doctors) In either case, in April I was sent for an Endoscopy (not as bad as you’d think, but I can think of better ways to spend a friday morning) just to rule out anything nefarious. But the hospital got my results mixed up with another patients. I went in with a sore throat, and they diagnosed me as having chronic migraines and ear pain. 

That mix up took nearly 3 months to correct and I actually only got the ACTUAL results of the test back a couple of weeks ago, turns out it IS nothing nefarious. At this point? I’m pretty convinced im going to need to have my Tonsils removed. The question is what options do I have available. Going via the NHS, I’ve already been told they will basically stick me on every Antibiotic they can get their hands on FOR MONTHS, and i’ll have had to have had at least 7 cases of Tonsillitis in a 12 month window before they’ll even CONSIDER taking them out (They’re still very likely to say no even at that point. Seriously, this shit can run on for YEARS.)

On the other hand, having looked into the private alternative, I’d be staring down the barrel of 3 grand in medical costs *minimum* and i’d be nearly a grand in the hole before I’d even know if they’d perform the operation. They just as easily could still say no at which point i’ve spent a grand and got nothing to show for it. 

As it stands, I can talk continuously for about 40 minutes and then my throat swells up, my tonsils get incredibly sore and I basically spend the next 2 days in pain, struggling to speak. If its conversational, I can manage a couple of hours (depending on how lively it is and how many people are involved) before the same thing happens. I’ve gone from being able to record 2 scripts a day, and 4 scripts over a weekend. To barely being able to struggle throug one of my usual scripts over 3 days…

Throat aside, I had also been dealing with burnout for a while now and had planned to make this a shorter season anyway to try and spend some time doing other things and hopefully relight the spark I have for these movies as an art form. With the throat issues combined with the burnout, it’s compounded things to the point that it’s made me realise that I probably need quite a bit more than a couple of extra weeks to get my groove back…

The OTHER issues…well…they’re quite a bit more significant. In May, I lost my Grandma. I’ve been part of a very fortunate family really in the sense that we havent really experienced death, we have a lot of very mixed health people, but they’ve all hung on to a reasonable age. My Grandmas passing was sudden, unexpected and not of *strictly* natural causes. It blindsided us honestly, particularly my mum and her brothers for whom, their mum was the figurehead of the family. It was horrible. 

That was shortly followed only a couple of weeks ago when my Dad passed away too AGAIN of unexpected circumstances and again on very short notice. Any one of those losses would be seismic, but to lose both of them in less than a month was truly awful. I feel honestly quite lost without them and i’ve spent most of the past week or so trying to regain my bearings because…y’know. Its my Dad. 

So. At least for the foreseeable, Not only am physically unable to work on new things. Im absolutely fried by a truly terrible year in almost every other regard. What does that mean in the long run? Well. 

Any and all existing obligations will be met and complete. That should mean 2 more uploads happening between now and September. I’ll be pausing the channel for the rest of the year from thereon (at least), while I try and get my voice fixed and I process the shitshow thats unfolded. I will still be appearing on other peoples channels occasionally on streams and such, and I’ll make sure to share when that will be. 

I’ll still be responding to comments where possible on my videos and im hoping to be more active on Letterboxd in the interim while my voice is shot. You’ll still be able to find me on Twitter, IG, Bluesky and our discord group and again, im hoping to be more active on those platforms too. My hope is that, if I can get my voice back up and running before the years out. That I’ll be able to have new stuff coming around early to mid next year. But for the moment, I don’t think I’ve watched a movie in about 3 weeks and I haven’t properly even rested in a couple of months at least. 

So! Not the best news in the world. But I absolutely didn’t want to leave any of you guys hanging on radio silence. I want to  thank you all so much for your patience and continued support, and I really hope I get to see you all again very soon. Thank you for your understanding and…Till next time.

– Dan