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Dom Robinson reviews
Friday April 5th, 2002
- Price: £13.00
I went to The Comedy Storefor the first time on this night tosee what it was like and thoroughly enjoyed the Best of Stand-upnight which was on. At £13 a ticket, it’s not something you’ll make ahabit of doing on a weekly basis, but every single one of the acts I sawwas excellent in their own way.
The show was compered throughout the night by John Fothergillfrom Newcastle, who expertly took the piss out of several audiencemembers, so it didn’t take long to realise that if he looks in yourdirection you should look elsewhere, as well as not moving an inchfrom your seat at any time while he was on stage.
The first act was loudmouth Scot Freddie Boyle, who found anaudience member old enough and similar enough to be confused forhis father, so suggested a Proclaimers tribute (this didn’t happen,sadly); then the laid-back Gary Delaney told a series of one-liners which ended by twisting thepreconceptions gathered from the first part and threw in a line about going out with a pink mouse who livedon the moon, but once he dumped her he felt like he’d dropped a clanger. “For anyone under 25…” (andthen went on to explain it for them).
The third and final act of the first half, Helen Austin, a short-haired blonde girl, also took swipes at variousaudience members but brilliantly added in a few songs from her electric guitar that blended a fantasticvoice with clever and insightful lyrics and played them to established tunes, so “Smooth Operator”became “Smoother Vibrator”. An example soundclip of her performance can befoundhere.
The first act of the second half was Asian comedian Paul Choudhury. He started off being a bit of a’sweary Mary’, but settled down and explained how he wished he could be part of the Al-Qeida Network…”because the One2One Network is shit. At least with the Al-Qeida Network you’d get good coverage incaves, but none at all in Cuba”. He also claimed that Osama Bin Laden was starring as Fagin in Oliver!,singing “You’ve got to bomb a tower or two(!)”
Finally, they saved the best for last – and the first name we’d heard of – in theform of Marcus Brigstocke (right), one of the guest panellists for ITV’sone-series-wonder Casting Couch – hosted by Mel & Sue and which I’d like tosee return, star of the unbelievably crap BBC1 sitcom The Savages (which heclearly only does for the money) and the recent BBC2 10-minute comedy seriesWe Are History.
He was quite clearly more comfortable than the rest of the acts about appearingon stage and made several side-splitting wisecracks, including that, for the 2002Grand National, he’d placed a bet on Shot in the Paddock and closing withswipes at compensation culture, the Declan Swan adverts from Claims Direct, plus the one about thefootball player who fell off a ladder at work, complaining why the ladder wasn’t “two or three storeys higher”and on debt-consolidation companies: “Why get shafted by 100 little cocks? Come to ‘Baines and Ernst’and get fucked up the arse by one huge one!… ‘Baines and Ernst’ – so good it’ll crack your pelvis!”
An example soundclip can be foundhere.
Both soundclips are linked to the Jongleurs website.
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.