| StandupCom Magazine | |||
| [Home] [Interviews] | |||
| REVIEWS: MARCH - DECEMBER 1999 | |||
|
Reviews Archive Interviews News & Gossip |
Welcome to Archive Reviews: March - December 1999 Noel James, Buccaneer Comedy Club, London W1BATTY Welshman Noel James is a much under-rated comic. He may look like he has slept in a skip and his life is a total mess. But, comedically, he has really got his act together. James has tremendous stage charm and always looks like he is enjoying himself. Even on a bad night. He flits around his mountain of material from the 'surreal IRA' ('they planted a fish under my car') to wine made from tyres ('it was a good year'). And as he says, almost apologetically, he loves gags. The small Buccaneer audience loved him for it. It was a great performance. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** John Behrens December 1999 TONY HINDLE: The Comedy Supermarket, Canons' Gait Cellar Bar, Edinburgh TONY HINDLE is a man with a mission: to challenge and stimulate audiences used to comedy on a plate. In a truly outstanding performance, Hindle - a former electronic engineer - showed his verve and spontaneity by winning big laughs on subjects picked from a comedy menu by audience members. Everything from masturbation to the Euro, the UK royal family to evolution. The packed house loved it. It was the cutting edge of comedy and a breath of fresh air in a cliche-ridden Edinburgh. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** September 1999 Viagra Falls! (Hoo-Ha!), Cafe Royal, Edinburgh FOR Steven Alan Green, every performance is his last night in show business. He likes to start by telling his audience that he is on the verge of retirement. That explained, Green confesses to being "addicted to show business and comedy in particular" - and the laughs can start. With only five paying punters in a Sunday night audience of seven (including his wife of one year, to whom the show was dedicated), it was never going to be easy. But with characteristic self-confidence, Green chatted up and charmed his spectators until you felt he was entertaining you in your own living room. Although he is not one of the world's great gag writers, Green carries his fearless material - including some wonderfully offbeat impressions - with his excellent persona and endearing manner. Much of his success has been at home in America, but his loser act is ideally suited to a British audience. After all, we love an underdog - particularly when there is such a total lack of bitterness on display. And Green's other great strength is the high quality of his comic songs, such as his theme tune, entitled "F*** you!", which filled the room with laughter. As for the Viagra, it was given out by Mrs Green at the end of the show - enough stimulation to keep you busy until Green's showbiz comeback (the following night). Long may he continue. STAR RATING (out of five): **** August 1999 The Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award Grand Final 1999, Pleasance, Edinburgh AN enthusiastic capacity crowd created the perfect atmosphere for this year's final. But the billed compere, Boothby Graffoe, was replaced by Chris Addison - a vastly inferior substitute, in my view. Addison has a lot of mildly-amusing material, but also a most irritating stage manner. He is one of those pedestrian "Where are you from?" comperes, who swears too much and laughs at his own gags. The first of the 10 finalists was Billy Lewis, who was about as funny as Dominic Lawson on a bad hair day. Lewis needs to write far stronger material. But the standard dramatically improved. Dubliner Johnny Candon was first-rate, with wondrously-original gags about mice, spiders and British Bulldog. And the charming Belinda Merriman had some lovely material. Scottish newcomer Danny Bhoy took the roof off with an extraordinarily strong set. He is a star in the making, and it was no surprise that he eventually won the contest and £2,000 prize money. But the others were also good. Laury Lewin, a Frank Spencer-voiced rockabilly, had great stage presence and was commended by the judges, as was brazen Karen Taylor, who talked about her "magnificent breasts". Lara Silverstone had some good gags, and Alex Zane was marvellously off the wall, as was Welshman Richard Morris. And Adrian Poynton went ingloriously over the top with some truly sick jokes. Overall, it was a good final. STAR RATING (out of five): *** August 1999 Simon Munnery, The League Against Tedium: Dis Am Ubertechnokomedie, The Pleasance, Edinburgh. SIMON MUNNERY'S weird alter ego, the League Against Tedium is coming of age. Munnery has moved it on substantially this year, playing down the mad egotism and upping the geekiness of the character. The new League is now a techno-nerd who is more obsessed with his gadgets than his grasp of numerous self-invented languages. It is a highly innovative show with Munnery switching between visual images and live pictures from a television camera on a giant screen, all controlled by "The Glove of Power". Every night is set to be different as Munnery points his camera, mounted on a wooden sword, at the audience. You may find your shoes are the basis of 10 minutes of comedy - or your chest may suddenly appear on screen. But as every audience member is required to wear a pair of League Y-fronts on their head during the performance, nothing should come as a shock. It is ground-breaking comedy which Munnery admits is unpredictable. "If it works, it's funny," he says. "Otherwise, it can seem cruel." The same could said of one of his assistants, an obscene opera singer who abuses the audience. This is exactly the sort of risk-taking comedy the Edinburgh Fringe needs more of. STAR RATING (out of five): **** August 1999 Rich Hall a.k.a. Otis Lee Crenshaw, The Pleasance, Edinburgh WITH a cracking band behind him, Otis took to the stage and delivered a succession of sharply-written and hilarious songs, sandwiching lightning-quick banter with the capacity audience. Then something absolutely extraordinary happened. After a side-splittingly funny song about eating a girl in the front row (the subject laughed like a drain), a woman at the back stood up and shouted out that she objected to Hall's act for "ethical reasons". The gig then stopped for 15 minutes as the woman spouted on about how she had saved up to buy a ticket to see Hall but now he was boring and disgusting her. Eventually, it came out that her name was Sue Wall and, to Hall's amazement, the audience started chanting it at full volume: "SUE WALL, SUE WALL!!" Hall laughed and admitted: "This is the weirdes f***ing gig I've ever done." Then he said he would dedicate the next song to Sue Wall and started: "I want you. . . to go away." Wall walked out of the venue - and it erupted in laughter that went on for minutes. When the gig resumed, Hall hit new heights as jailbird Otis, with some brilliant ab-libbed lines and wonderful comic songs, tailored to the audience (such as one about mistaking Scottish place names for men's names). Whatever Sue Wall may be saying, we left knowing we had seen one of the world's great comedians in action. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** August 1999 Deb Percy: Sex and Sequins, Canon's Gait Cellar Bar, Edinburgh DEB PERCY talks dirty like no-one else I have ever met. She may dress like a shrinking violet, but the filth that comes gushing out of her cakehole would fill a reservoir. Lesbian sex, vibrators, b***ering men with strap-ons, examining her poo - and that's just a taster, so to speak. There seems no sexual perversity that Deb has not sampled in her short but promiscuous life. Most of the crowd, including an elderly couple, absolutely loved it. But a pair of fresh-faced lads walked out when Percy pestered them for their willy dimensions. Comedy does not get much ruder. STAR RATING (out of five): **** August 1999 Big And Daft, Gilded Balloon 2, Edinburgh ROB ROUSE, Ian Boldsworth and Jon Williams are a formidable comedy force. Playing three half-brothers who are thrown together in their own perverse and surreal world, the trio take the audience on a march through their crazed minds. Rob is a simpleton who, at one point in the show, appears to wet himself on the lap of a girl in the front row. Ian is a bully who sexually abuses Rob, and Jon is the monkey-obsessed, maths freak buffer between them. The show displayed remarkable pace and intensity, with scenes and Muppetesque puppet work flashing by in a high-speed orgy of mirth. The climax was a superb medley of Oasis and Beatles songs, merged to show up the oh-so-unsurprising similarities. Big And Daft was one of the finest shows at the Fringe. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** August 1999 Al Murray: Pub Landlord. Edinburgh Preview of "And a Glass of White Wine for The Lady!" at the Hen and Chickens Theatre, London N1 AL MURRAY is on blistering form with his funniest show to date. He has achieved so much already with the Pub Landlord but never tires of exploring new avenues. For Edinburgh this year, he says he has cut back on the "jingoistic material" and concentrated more on audience interaction. A bar set has been built and Murray moves about the stage far more freely than he did last year and displays greater flexibility in his routines. The results are hilarious. The Landlord's stymied thinking is applied with alacrity to any situation. When a girl says she is called 'Sara', he replies: "You mean Sarah. Pronounce your name properly!" And to a Media Studies student, he says: "Call it by its name, 'Watching The Telly'." And he has introduced a new set of intelligent themes: philosophy, pure maths, the millennium bug and the relative merits of buying and renting property. In a glorious finale, Murray graduates a student on stage - years too early - to save public money. STAR RATING (out of five): ****** August 1999 TREVOR CROOK & DAVE THOMPSON, Chelsea Comedy Cavern, Prague THE London comedy scene hit Eastern Europe as Dave Thompson and Trevor Crook took the roof off this fabulous bar packed with heartbreakingly beautiful women. The venue was packed with comedy-hungry ex-pats who loved Thompson's understated rudery and one-liners. Tony Brennan, a local comic and man from the British Embassy, turned in some good, locally-flavoured material. But the night belonged to London-based Aussie Trevor Crook's extended set. The concept of apathy is made flesh and funny in his scrawny frame. He meanders between material about his life and shockingly crude gags - and had the crowd mesmerized for 50 minutes. Comedy in Prague is cool. Check it out! STAR RATING (out of five): **** July 1999 KEVIN HAYES, Edinburgh preview of Beyond the Pale, Hampstead Comedy Club, London ONE of the jewels of last year's festival was Kevin Hayes' Beyond The Pale - a history of Ireland in 50 minutes. It was literate, intelligent and very funny. And Hayes is sure to score another direct hit with this year's Beyond The Pope, an A to Z of religion, with particular emphasis on Catholicism. While this performance was obviously a work in progress, he swept across the religious landscape to embrace Rupert Murdoch and the Toronto Blessing in 50 minutes of material as rich, dense and satisfying as a fruitcake. I'll be back for another slice. STAR RATING (out of five): **** Georgina Gush / July 1999 Jason Freeman: Shiny Side Up, Dirty Side Down, Hampstead Comedy Club, London YOU might think that Jason Freeman is too young in comedy years to be contemplating an Edinburgh show of his own. Freeman is strangely adolescent but not without charm. He acknowledged that he was not going down well. His act was self-indulgent. He said not a lot and took a long time about it. There is some potential there, but he needs more content and less art. And, perhaps, he should pull out of this year's Edinburgh Festival. He is simply not ready. STAR RATING (out of five): * Georgina Gush / July 1999 Second Birthday Party, Joe's Comedy Madhouse, Stoke Newington, London N16 WHAT a truly amazing night! This little club rose to new heights as it celebrated its second anniversary in tremendous form. Genial Geordie compere Alfie Joey warmed up the crowd packed into Ryan's Bar on Stoke Newington Church Street with really strong gags - and a jolly song. And musical comedian and disc jockey Neil Long performed a lovely little set on white rappers, promising newcomer Steve Morrison showed the stength of his material and Barry Hall proved the Madhouse is brave enough to accommodate the most daring of routines. Then came the Joe's Comedy Madhouse Awards, as the club's progenitor, Joe Wilson, honoured the maddest, baddest and best acts of the first two years. His amusing speech was greatly enjoyed by the crowd and the results heartily received. Ed Hill (the Rev. Hyde) beat off strong competition to be named Best Character Act (non-headline) and the extraordinary Jimbo scooped Maddest Act. Finally, Ivan Steward scooped Best Act 1997-99 and immediately went into a hilarious half-hour routine. The audience was crying with laughter. It was comedy of the highest order. In the second half, Amanda Baker, Ed Hill and Jimbo all stormed it - leaving the audience in no doubt that the Madhouse is an unbeatable club that's here to stay. Happy Birthday, Madhouse! Long may you continue. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** Peter Guest / June 1999 AZTEC COMEDY, Borderland, London SE19 IT was hot but Anvil Springstien rose to the occasion, talking filth to a table of girls who were too young to be drinking. One of them, a young girl wearing bunches, was interrogated about kinky sex - and did not even understand the questions. Anvil's scally manner and winning smile allow him to take breathtaking liberties and have probably saved him from a few good kickings. Headliner Paul Vallis is more skilled, particularly in voice techniques, than funny. Some of his impressions are dated. How many under thirties would be au fait with Columbo, Jack Lemmon and Batman actor Adam West? He needs to update his material. STAR RATING (out of five): *** Georgina Gush / June 1999 The Monday Club, London W1 THIS room shouldn't work, being long and narrow with a high, narrow stage, deep pit and audience on several levels, but there's a worn, plush charm and vitality to the place. Logan Murray's character Ronnie Rigsby made a superb, intelligent and funny MC - not many comics could slip the word 'germane' and a reference to the Battle of Actium into a warm-up. Australian Bruno Lucio made a storming opening to the show. He's an OK stand-up but put a guitar in his hands and he raises the musical comedy stakes like no-one else can. Dave Dave did an excellent 10-minute spot; he has a comfortable stage presence and doesn't confuse energy with movement. Final act, Aussie Matt Hardy, the man in the white suit, had to work hard on the drunk and chatty audience, and complained bitterly about it. Hell, he was the headliner. What did he expect: a walk in the park? He's a comic who probably couldn't cut it Down Under and so has built a career on his dim blokiness over here. Frankly, I'd be more charmed by some new material than his uncouth persona. STAR RATING (out of five): *** Georgina Gush / May 1999 Brixton Comedy, South London ROBIN INCE entertained the packed house with his geeky sense of humour. But unfortunately, it's a style that wears very thin - like being trapped by the class swot. He is a clever guy but the musical references were getting interminable. Newish act Simon Evans was delightfully acerbic. And Canadian Mike Wilmot was excellent. Utterly filthy with a compelling oak-smoked voice marinaded in beer, his lascivious ramblings and pride in his own dirty style made him top act of the night. STAR RATING (out of five): **** Georgina Gush / April 1999 Buccaneers Comedy, London W1 OPENING act Mark Kelly is a talented and literate comic who employs an even presentation style that makes him seem equanimous - even when he's angry. He was constantly interrupted by a group of over-excited drunks in the audience but still delivered a smooth performance. Canadian Terri Stewart made us chuckle with a set on her "porno hair" and small towns. Goofy-looking Mark Felgate blew us away with his bounce and ventriloquism. Some people write funny; some people simply are funny. He falls into the latter category. The penultimate act, Simon Heaton, had some good material and went down a storm with the drunks. And finally, the wonderful Noel James stormed the night with his surreal rambling, word play, music and casual confidence. First class! STAR RATING (out of five): **** Georgina Gush / April 1999 Oval Comedy Club, south London ST. PATRICK'S DAY and a major soccer fixture robbed this club of its audience. Eleven comics sat in the cavernous back room of the Grosvenor pub - on a grotty council estate - and gamely put on a new-material workshop. It was not well done. Its virtue was that it was done at all. The main amusement was watching the acts heckling each other. STAR RATING (out of five): ** Georgina Gush / March 1999 Up The Creek, Greenwich, London. EDDIE BANNON was making a flying visit from Ireland and proved a bouncy and friendly compere with good material that headed in unexpected directions. But he need not have offered the rough-as-whorehouses south London audience the choice between intellectual material and knob gag routines. I think Bannon should have been trying to wean the crowd off knob gags. However, he was positive and excellent. Newer comedienne Pilch - a university researcher by day - did her best to disguise her intellectual background and did surprisingly well, even slipping in a poem. And Canadian Greg Wool - a knob gag merchant like Bannon - was very self-assured and commanded the audience's attention with his relaxed manner and chatty style. STAR RATING (out of five): *** Georgina Gush / March 1999 Jongleurs, Battersea, South London JEFF INNOCENT'S compering is a triumph of assertion over content. His gags aren't spectacular - but there's a certain Carry On film charm to him that persuades you that he knows what he's doing. Of the night's acts, most tribute must be made to Steve McGrew. This American comic sweeps all before him. His drinking and marital strife stories have the vivid imagery of cartoon characterisations, amplified by a small gesture or facial expression here and there. McGrew's not a visual comic in the usual sense; his skill is to create word pictures making you think you've seen what you haven't. Comedy magic! STAR RATING (out of five): **** Georgina Gush / March 1999 Ian Cognito, Brixton Comedy Club WHAT a relief! At last I can join the Ian Cognito Fan Club. Possibly by Mrs Cognito's definition, Ian is 'devilishly handsome but impossible to live with' - an explosive mixture of fin-de-siecle dandy and old testament prophet with Tourette's Syndrome! The prospect of an extended set by Cognito held the combined pleasure and terror of awaiting a volcanic eruption. It might look spectacular - but you wouldn't like to be caught in the molten lava. His tone of moral outrage and disgust had focus, without an annihilation of any member of the audience. Cognito started loud and moved up a note or three, punctuating the barking with fine singing and guitar playing ("Let's see Eddie Izzard do that - any fool can put on a dress!") And it was the songs that made the most blistering points, especially when it came to Lord Archer. It was an excellent number and should be adopted by Ken Livingstone as his mayoral campaign song. What a great night! Rarely has a barn been so utterly stormed. STAR RATING (out of five): ***** Georgina Gush / March 1999 Visit our sister site: Oliver's Poetry home Get your poems published for free Friends' Poetry home Oliver's Poetry Garret Interactive Blog Oliver's Poetry Garret No Frills Blog A-Z of Poetry Oliver's Poetry UK |
||