Comedy

Beating McEnroe

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27/03/15

The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

We enter the theatre to find a bearded man dressed in a tennis headband and a towelling bathrobe. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor silently contemplating a pile of tennis balls. As the crowd continues to shuffle to their seats, he starts to throw the balls to people and urges them to throw them back. Then, once everyone is assembled, he gets us all to chant some kind of repetitive mantra.The man is Jamie Wood and the show is Beating McEnroe, a monologue about the infamous Wimbledon showdown between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. It’s also about how the young Jamie came to terms with always being whupped at tennis by his older brother. It’s about hero worship and the awful realisation that one day, all heroes must inevitably be bested, often by people who don’t seem to deserve the acclaim. Along the way there’s some slapstick, some dancing and some very funny visual jokes. Wood’s charming persona allows him to effortlessly manipulate the audience into helping him out, acting as his umpires, his ball boys and girls even at one point impersonating him (nice one Susan!) and his big brother. This is interactive theatre at its best and while it’s undeniably a piece of fluff, it’s fluff that’s performed with great skill and a disarming lightness of touch – enough to earn it a nomination for a Total Theatre Award at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

I had the task of tying a carton of table salt to Jamie’s head, which might sound decidedly odd, but which resulted in the funniest visual gag of the night. I felt as though somehow I had contributed to the evening and left feeling rather pleased with myself. We caught this performance at the end of it’s run at the Traverse, but those seeking a genuinely entertaining night at the theatre could do a lot worse than booking to see this at the Lowry in Salford where it plays for just one night on Saturday 28th of March. You’ll believe a man can become a human tennis ball!

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Stewart Lee – A Room With A Stew

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12/03/15

The Lyric Theatre, Lowry, Salford Quays

In the cavernous environs of the Lyric Theatre , Stewart Lee cut a lonely (and somewhat distant) figure on a massive stage. Stand up comedy always works better in a more intimate venue, so he had his work cut out to get  his unique and cynical brand of humour across to an audience of sixteen hundred people. The fact that he was doing four nights here testified to the fact that, largely thanks to his enduring ‘Comedy Vehicle’ slot, he’s somewhat better known than other comedians of his ilk, but he’s yet to step up to the Michael Mcintyre arena-sized venues that have become the norm for so many comedians, most of whom have neither the intelligence nor the edginess of Mr Lee.

As ever, he was quick to mock the middle-class audience, imagining the reactions of people who’d been taken along to see him and were ‘waiting for the jokes to start.’ Tonight, his subjects ranged from UKIP (OK, an easy target but one that he demolished with characteristic glee) Norris McWhirter (!!!) and Rod Liddle, who came in for undreamed of levels of venom. Lee wheeled out all of most familiar tropes and devices. His use of repetition is by now legendary and he always manages to walk that difficult tightrope between the hilarious and the downright irritating. I was kept laughing constantly throughout the two sets and let’s face it, that is pretty much the object of the exercise.

I’d love to see his act in a smaller venue, but experience over the past few years has told me, that acquiring tickets to his slots at the Edinburgh Festival is an almost impossible task.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Stand Comedy Club

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12/12/2014

It probably wasn’t a great idea to come out to this when we were supposed to be sorting out the new flat, but hey, Dylan Moran is top of the bill and when did we last get the chance to see him in a gig as intimate as The Stand? So off we troop, early enough to get seats at the front and a couple of drinks later, the event kicks off.

JoJo Sutherland is our host for the evening and she’s brash, confident, good at milking the crowds for material. She swigs at a pint all the way through and swears enough to make the proverbial navvy blush and then introduces the first act of the evening.

Eleanor Morton stumbles on stage holding a ukele and delivers a great set that’s built around her supposed inability to communicate with others. It’s toe-curling stuff, expertly put together, though it’s clearly not to everyone’s taste – a couple sitting across the stage from us don’t crack a smile throughout. This is Marmite comedy, you’ll either love it or hate it and I fell into the first category. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Eleanor.

Next up is Ally Houston, who could be Eleanor’s perfect partner, judging by the persona he adopts, a gormless social misfit with a guitar, some truly awful lyrics and (disturbingly) a plastic doll sellotaped around his waist, to whom he dedicates a couple of songs. Once again, the couple opposite us clearly aren’t getting the jokes at all, but Houston is walking a tricky comedy tightrope and is surely a name to watch in the future.

I felt a bit sorry for Chris Martin (not that one!) who after all the weirdness somehow came across as a bit ‘safe.’ He was perfectly pleasant and delivered his routine with confidence, but it all felt a little too familiar and, dare I say it, not as edgy as we might have expected at this venue.

And then it was time for the headline act and out shambled Dylan Moran, a little chunkier than I remembered him (aren’t we all?) and still maintaining the persona of a man who has had a few too many red wines before stepping onto the stage. I’ve never been sure if that’s just an act he puts on or whether it’s genuine (he was certainly drinking red wine throughout this performance) but I do fondly remember being in stitches at some of his earlier appearances and I’m also acutely aware that tonight, he seemed unfocused and sloppy and (dare I say it?) slightly out  of tune with contemporary tastes. A routine about the ‘Asian lady inside him’ felt uncomfortably like borderline racism and his long-winded tirade about the pitfalls of buying a decent cup of coffee in Starbucks seemed frankly, too easy a target. That said, there were a few moments here, when you briefly glimpsed the brilliant raconteur he once was and I’m sure, could be again. If appearing at The Stand is a prelude to him returning to a tour of bigger venues, then he really needs to hone his material more carefully,jettison anything that comes across as lazy and concentrate on the surreal observations that have always been his greatest strength.

An interesting night and one in which the newer names shone brighter than the actual ‘star’ of the show.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Marcel Lucont – Is

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The Stand, Edinburgh 26/10/14

Marcel Lucont’s reputation has evidently preceded him. He’s managed to sell out the Stand Comedy Club, something that better known comedians have sometimes failed to do. Furthermore, he’s achieved this on a rainy Sunday night, no mean feat. He slinks onto the stage, sneer on his lips, glass of red wine in his hand and proceeds to embody every negative stereotype of a Frenchman: rude, vitriolic and distinctly un-PC in his approach to food, drink and matters of sexuality. It’s a clever characterisation, but that’s exactly what it is.  Lucont is no more French than I am; he is a creation of comedian Alex Dubus.

Not that it matters. His laid back approach mines plenty of laughs and he intersperses the standup with some witty poems, a couple of novelty songs and some (hilarious) extracts from his upcoming autobiography. There’s even a couple of little videos he’s filmed which run on a screen at the side of the stage. The set is divided into two halves and I have to confess the first of them is stronger and more cohesive than the second, which depends more on audience participation. Perhaps the stormy conditions have battered most of us into submission, but he doesn’t get a lot back from the crowd. Furthermore, our late arrival means that we end up viewing the proceedings standing right at the back of the packed venue and Lucont’s act does depend on a degree of intimacy between him and us.

Nevertheless, Alex Dubus’s sneering, leering ‘Frenchman’ is an interesting and highly original creation that’s worthy of further investigation.

3.9 stars

Philip Caveney

Richard Herring – Lord of the Dance Settee

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15/10/14

Frog and Bucket, Manchester

The UK’s hardest-working comedian brought his Edinburgh Festival show to a sold-out Frog and Bucket, bringing much-needed laughter on a grim and rainy Wednesday night in October. As ever, when you see a show in a different venue, there are pluses and minuses.

The pluses were evident from the word go. Herring was able to extend the material over a more leisurely ninety minutes, instead of the brisk one-hour slots that are the Edinburgh norm, and it was also clear that he’d honed and polished the material since August, extracting every ounce of humour from it. His unique, hectoring style is a joy to behold, finding laughs in the most unlikely places and time and again, he strays perilously close to the indefensible, only to dance nimbly away, defusing the whole thing with a barrage of carefully chosen invective. Laugh and learn folks, laugh and learn. At times, the packed audience was near to hysteria.

The minuses were mostly imposed on Herring by circumstances beyond his control. He couldn’t, for instance, recreate the ingenious circular narrative of the original shows, mostly because of the confines of the club’s tiny stage and the fact that the titular settee (freshly sourced for each location, apparently) looked as though it would have resulted in broken limbs if he’d tried to do what he did in Edinburgh. But ultimately, it didn’t matter. A friend at our table judged this to be one of the best comedy shows he’d ever seen and the iconic name of Daniel Kitson was mentioned as a suitable comparison. This was also an opportunity to get hold of the (reasonably priced and much-longed for) Fist of Fun DVDs. There are still some seats available for later in the tour (Crewe in particular, judging by an off-the-cuff remark that Herring made onstage) so if you have the chance to catch a show, then I would strongly advise you to take it.

Laughter is in perilously short supply these days and this is comedy gold.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Comedy Store, Manchester

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11/10/14

It’s Saturday night in Manchester and we’re in for the 7 pm show, which though not sold out, is decently packed with punters in search of a good laugh. By and large, they were well-served tonight.

Host Alun Cochrane, has a genial and engaging personality, that comes across from the moment he steps out on the boards. He scores immediate brownie-points for telling me that I look a good ten years younger than my actual age, though I do inevitably become the butt of several quips throughout the evening. Cochrane demonstrates his professionalism early in the proceedings by deftly defusing a potentially dangerous situation, when a well-oiled gentleman with a pizza takes exception to a couple of digs made about his tattoos, but you can’t expect to sit near the front in a show like this and not be picked upon. How the gentleman comes to be so well-oiled by 7 pm is a matter for conjecture, but Cochrane handles the situation brilliantly and the show goes on.

First up is Paul Tonkinson, who has a nice line in physical comedy. His impersonation of a wheat-intolerant person and his demonstration of what his lady friend looks like after a few drinks are undoubted highlights and the laughs, generally of the ‘we’ve all been there’ variety come thick and fast.

Geoff Norcott is a Londoner and there’s much mileage made about how Northern audiences differ from those on his home turf. He has an affable style, that once again milks the audience for laughs and the revelation that there’s an Olympic gold medallist of the Tai Kwondo persuasion sitting in the front row is seized upon to generate some gold medal laughter.

The second half begins with David Hadingham, another Londoner, who offers routines about speeding on the motorway and the differences between men and women. Of all the performers tonight, his material is perhaps the most hack, but he doesn’t disgrace himself and manages to rescue his set with some outrageous quips that have you wondering whether you should laugh or cringe.

But the most confrontational jokes of the night come from headliner, Roger Monkhouse, who has a sly and intelligent patter that often slips into ‘I can’t believe I just said that’ territory. He receives some (good natured) heckling from a couple of Scottish punters and responds with a series of excoriating putdowns, that absolutely flays them alive; but his good-natured, smiling persona allows him to go further than many comics would dare to and he still walks off to heartfelt applause. It’s a dangerous tightrope but he walks it expertly.

Overall, a good night and as the crowd is shunted swiftly towards the doors (there’s a second show at 9 pm) we wander out into the night with the distinct impression that we’ve had a decent (if a little safe) helping of comedy entertainment. One caveat: it would be nice to see some female comedians on the bill. We’ve recently returned from the Edinburgh Festival where some of the best performances we saw were by women.

3.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Stand Up With Labour

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22/09/14

Opera House Manchester

On the face of it, this Labour Conference tub-thumper looked like a win-win situation. Watch five top comics for an all-in price of around thirty pounds and support your chosen political party at the same time. But perched in the vertiginous gallery of the Manchester Opera House, I began to wonder if comedy was ever designed to work in a venue like this.

Our host was Stephen K. Amos. I’ve seen and heard him before and have been left somewhat unimpressed, but he proved an intelligent choice to compere tonight’s proceedings and performing live, he’s much edgier than he’s allowed to be on TV and radio. He generated genuine laughs and established a lively rapport with the audience down in the stalls, though from our perch in the gods, we couldn’t actually see any of that.

First up was Ian Stone, who I confess I hadn’t previously heard of. He ambled out and delivered a confident and sometimes hilarious set of observational comedy, though a piece about the situation in Gaza (he’s Jewish) was perhaps the most ‘political’ comedy of the evening. By the time he’d finished, I had laughed heartily and I marked him down as ‘one to watch.’

Phill Jupitus is of of course a familiar name from TV panel shows. Here he was, performing stand up for the first time in years, mostly because Eddie Izzard invited him to this event (or so Phill told us). To be honest, he looked like he didn’t really want to be there and gave us a diffident, overly intellectual routine, reading from his collection of (decent) poems and occasionally glancing at his watch. The ‘highlight’ of his routine was a poem about Jeremy Clarkson, hardly the most original of targets and the only laughter that he managed to raise was muted and sporadic. Maybe he’s been too long away from the game, but this was definitely the most disappointing act of the evening.

Sarah Pascoe on the other hand, is a brilliant stand up, but her set was somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the auditorium and it didn’t help that it was word-for-word the same act I’d seen at the Edinburgh fringe in August where she played a much smaller venue and managed to make every line a zinger. Nevertheless, for my money, this was still the best material of the evening and I believe that Pascoe has a bright future ahead of her.

Top of the bill, Eddie Izzard strode out and was… well, uniquely Eddie Izzard. We were treated to the usual surreal stream-of-consciouness shtick, ranging from the origins of human sacrifice to something that strayed dangerously close to Monty Python’s ‘What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?’ routine. He wasn’t remotely phased by the size of the venue but his set reminded me of one of those budget bumper boxers of cheap fireworks. Throw in a match and you’ll discover a few dazzling beauties in there, but you’ll also find several damp squibs that don’t quite go off. Izzard really needs a longer time slot in order for his irrational nonsense to bear any kind of fruit and there simply wasn’t space for it here.

All-in-all, an interesting night but one that didn’t really live up to expectations. For one thing, given that this was a fund raiser for the Labour party, I would have expected to see more comedy with a political edge. But Ian Stone aside, there wasn’t much and he only flirted with it, before moving on to more general humour. And then there’s the Opera House itself… hmm. The moral of the story is, I think that comedy works best in smaller, more intimate venues, where the comics really can reach out and work their strange chemistry on an audience. Had we managed to procure seats down in the stalls, this might have been a more positive review. But the stars reflect the show as a whole.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Big Value Thursday at the Frog and Bucket

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28/08/14

On Thursday nights at the Frog and Bucket, the accent is on value for money and we certainly get that. For a basic admission cost of £9, there’s an ebullient host (Dave Ward) and four comedians. Drinks are relatively cheap for Manchester city centre and the interior of the club is clean and welcoming. 

First up is Geordie comic, Seymour Mace, who looks like a cross between Eric Morecambe and Elvis Costello. He favours a sly, much put-upon persona, which doesn’t always connect with the crowd, but I really liked his closing routine where he imagined himself as a backing singer for Gladys Knight. (One of the Pips?) He demonstrated a flair for movement and visual comedy, something that he might want to develop more.

Liam Tulley is an impassive young stand-up who could do with a little more confidence than he’s currently showing. There are some decent gags peppered through his ten minute spot, but he has a tendency to rattle through the material, where a more measured delivery would reap dividends. That’s something that will surely come with experience.

Mike Milling is a different kind of comic entirely. A bearded, hyperactive chap in shorts, he leaps onstage and with a series of hand drawn cartoons, outlines his plans for a blockbuster sequel to Snakes On A Plane, Jack Russell’s in a Caravan. It’s faintly surreal and occasionally very funny, but once again, the short time slot works against him. 

The evening’s headliner is Jeff Innocent, a Londoner and his evident professionalism sets him apart from his fellow comics on tonight’s bill. We’ve caught his act before at the Comedy Store in London, where he came on dressed in combat gear, looking very aggressive and proceeded to charm everyone by being the exact opposite of what we expected. His approach to comedy is clever and he delights in confounding expectations. He’s certainly on fine form tonight, describing himself as the ‘jewish Bruce Willis’ and pointing out how confusing it must be for people who expect him to be a racist only to discover that he’s really quite the opposite. He works the crowd expertly and is rewarded with hearty laughter. He’s given the lion’s share of the running time and it simply zips by. Almost before we know it, the show’s over and it’s time to head home.

The ‘Frog’ has been Manchester’s foremost comedy club for something like 20 years and those looking for a night of good value entertainment could do a lot worse than trying their regular Thursday night sessions.

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Scott Capurro

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19/08/14

Assembly Rooms, George Street

Scott Capurro strolls onto the stage at the Assembly Rooms, looking like Kevin Bacon’s half-brother. He takes one look at the (rather sparse) audience and then he’s off and running. His sly, strangely endearing, but openly bitchy persona comes equipped with an excoriating tongue and a recklessness that means no subject is beyond the range of his scorn – race, religion, sexuality, politics… you name it; each subject is set up and summarily chopped down with a series of wicked one-liners. In short, this man doesn’t care who he offends and indeed, appears to revel in it. It’s saying something when a brief allusion to Robin Williams leaves him momentarily misty-eyed and after the vitriolic tirade that has preceded it, it’s this moment that seems shockingly perverse. 

Capurro achieves a powerful rapport with his audience even as he is ripping them to pieces. A guy to my left, despite being accompanied by his girlfriend is ‘secretly gay’ – and so Capurro flirts with him throughout the rest of the act. A married couple across the room, out to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary, are depicted as a pair of inbred knuckle draggers. And when he discovers that Susan and I have been married for exactly one week and two days, we soon find ourselves the butt of his scorn… but we’re laughing and cringing in equal measure. Capurro isn’t going to win any awards for sensitivity but this show is as funny as it is outrageous and clearly deserves a bigger audience than it had tonight. Excellent stuff.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Rob Newman’s New Theory of Evolution

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19/08/14

Stand On The Square, Edinburgh

Back in the 1980’s, as part of influential TV comedy troop The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Rob Newman became a household name. Shortly thereafter, with his partner David Badiel, he was one of the first comedians to play stadium-sized gigs around the UK. But then something went wrong and he dropped out of sight for quite some time. Now, after an absence of seven years, he’s back in Edinburgh, with this slice of anthropologically-inspired comedy.

The first thing to say is that it’s very original material and Newman approaches stand-up like no other comedian I’ve ever seen. It’s probably also fair to say that the results aren’t wildly funny, yielding smirks and knowing sniggers, rather than big laughs. This is clever stuff, perhaps too clever for tonight’s festival crowd, who’ve clearly come out fuelled by a couple of drinks, expecting something rather more accessible than what they’re given.

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Newman seems decidedly ill at ease with his audience. He stalks up and down the small stage, putting everything he has into his delivery, the effort requiring him to mop at his perspiring face with a handkerchief, but he fails to establish any real rapport and that’s a problem. His wide-ranging talk is actually closer to a lecture than a comedy routine and it’s punctuated by a couple of songs, inexpertly bashed out on a ukelele, that fail to make any impact whatsoever. Perhaps in a more sober environment, this might have managed to generate more sparks, but tonight it comes across as something of a missed opportunity. Shame, because there’s a real intellect at work here, that fails to make a proper connection with its intended audience.

3.2 stars

Philip Caveney