Tuesday, July 25, 2006

25th July

WHAT A SHOW!!

You must realise I only say this because Pete (one of our number) wasn't there. But it was a cracker.

Callum Cramb took the opportunity to compére the whole night, and warmed a lovely crowd into a great one.

Opening the night was a fat lad called Al Dawes, who ran over time, offended the weak, and talked at great length about drunkeness and karaoke. He loves to work the most obvious material. The word esoteric isn't in his vocabulary. He could never spell it.

Next was Gina Savage. Despite being introduced as Gina Davis, she had a beautiful dry wit with some very clever punchlines. Hopefully more of her in the future.

Nolbert Stump. If you haven't seen him, you are weaker because of it. A fine performance from a bloomin' lunatic who seems to love the taste of shaving foam. Think Charlie Chuck, but even more northern, and including the word 'clarts'. You will not see an act like that in jonglers, which is exactly why you shouldn't go.

James Christopher decided to ditch his entire set, and strike out in new ground. He may have been heckled by a scouser, but he was awash with new - and funny - material, mostly out of the top drawer, but some of it from a wardrobe.

Matt Seber got all political on our ass. There was confusion, then laughter, then some clapping, and some excellent prescott baiting. A breath of fresh air from a guy who knew what he was doing, and did it.

Finally, Kate Fox reprised her performance from last time, and furthered my opinion of internet dating - if those guys get it, surely I can - girly, funny, and very, very lovely.

Hell of a night. In years to come, you will pretend to your mates you were there.

Friday, July 14, 2006

11TH OF JULY.

From this weeks show - Scott Mccloud, 70's comic Les Bastard, Les Paul Marshall, Steffen Peddie - For pics of the other performers have a look at the reviews of other shows - everyone's on the site somewhere.


This weeks show was another quiet one - come on people! But this is the quiet season for comedy, if we can survive through this then we should be nicely full when the weather turns in September. (This is what we keep telling ourselves.) Anyway, still a good gig for those that did come, the audience was thin but the stage was packed.

Al started us off, talking of 'celebrity' love island - which has actually dropped the first word because there's no one in it that anyone's heard of. Al speculated that he is probably already too famous to get on the show.

Scott McCloud has only done a handful of gigs but already has a great, inventive set. He discussed the new BBC show 'Only fools on Horses' and suggested this may be the start of a trend for turning old comedies into new game shows. How about 'Blackadder' he mused, 'Where Carol Vordeman puts on make-up and experiences life as a maths genius and an ethnic minority.'

Callum told us of the time he met Prince Charles, asked him what he thought of 'Spitting Image' and got a bollocking from his teacher for his cheek. Happy days! Then he announced;

Steffen Peddie. Steff was not a happy bunny, but comedy legend that he is, he managed to milk his 'why did I bother coming tonight?' mood and was the highlight of tonight's show. (Even if he did speculate at one point that we might have all died and gone to hell.) Until you've seen Steff singing 'Your beautiful' as Elmer Fudd, you haven't lived.

Les Paul Marshall, was on at the first LLC, and he was back tonight, amusing and disgusting in equal measure - well comic songs about menstruation and pedophilia aren't everyone's cup of tea.

As the show neared it's end came competition time! This week it was favorite mother in law jokes, and to read them out we had Yorkshires top comic (1978) Les Bastard (Pete with a cushion up his shirt.) Al was on the drums providing the BADUM TISH! After every punchline. My favorite of the night: I wouldn't say my mother in law's fat, but she sat on a rainbow and Skittles came out.

Finally a stellar double bill of Sarah Millican and John Scott, both trying out new material and wowing the 'crowd' with classic material too. John's back for the next two weeks, so catch him again as he perfects material for his hour long show later in the year.