The watertight theory behind the Credit Crunch Cabaret is that we all need cheering up, above all on Monday nights. Frank Skinner compered 10 of these start-the-week-for-a-tenner variety nights earlier in the year. He returned last night for another 10-Monday stint. Variety was still on the agenda: it’s never not going to be the case that in a bill with four acts, some are going to be funnier than others. Much funnier.
comedy reviews
Veronica Lee
“Let’s start with ‘I’m so lonely’,” says Simon Amstell at the top of his show, Do Nothing. As an opening line for most comedy evenings, that would be about as enticing as the oyster special at the Slurry Pond Inn but thankfully the ex-host of BBC’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks serves up an evening as witty as it is intellectually nutritious.
Jasper Rees
“Got a mortgage.” Thus spake Michael McIntyre last night. It’s an article of faith for McIntyre - an all but unique selling point - that he is one of us. He wears a suit to work and doesn’t think about al-Qaeda that much. How many other comedians do you come across who remind you even vaguely of you? Where most stand-ups are weird or ugly or angry or hairy or epically rude (or all of the above), McIntyre is groundbreakingly normal, boy-next-door bourgeois. The jokes are all about the things all of us do - in the shops, in the kitchen, the bedroom. But not in the office. In what other profession, he wonderfully observed, do you get summoned back by applause to put in an extra 10 minutes the moment you finish your shift?
Veronica Lee
For my money, Andy Parsons is by some distance the best panellist on BBC2’s Mock the Week - not that you would know it from the editing, which appears to be in thrall to that shouty Scottish bloke. Parsons is quick, witty, clever and has a command of current affairs that only MTW host Dara O Briain can match. What a pleasure, then, to see him live, commanding the audience’s rapt and thoroughly entertained attention in a show that lasted more than two hours, but which just flew by.
Veronica Lee
“He’s a naughty lad, isn’t he?” said an elderly lady to her husband as they left Julian Clary’s show, Lord of the Mince, which had numerous references to gay sexual practices. The remark wasn’t made in anger, mind, but with a smile on both their faces - and that’s a clue as to why Clary gets away with some unbelievably smutty material. As with many a camp gay comic, from Frankie Howerd and Larry Grayson to, more recently, Graham Norton and Paul O’Grady, the British public just love him.
Jasper Rees
The departure from the Oval Office of George W Bush was a catalyst for much street festivity over the water, for inappropriate hugging of strangers and random multi-ethnic high-fiving. Of course whole tranches of the all-American demographic were somehow able to contain their excitement at the coming of Obama – among them oil profiteers, health insurers, people whose recreation includes shooting other people in the head. But none mourn Dubya like American comedians. And no American comedian mourns him more than Rich Hall. There aren’t so many jokes in the audacity of hope.
Thomas H. Green
With his latest campaign to become Governor of Texas just kicking into gear, Kinky Friedman should probably be at home in the US, rather than on the south coast of Britain. The man himself says that he's been "sent out of state so I wouldn't screw up". In 2006 he took 13 per cent of the vote as an independent candidate but next year he has the backing of the Democratic Party so it's more than just the eccentric whim of a Jewish country singer.
Veronica Lee
There was a very strong line-up last night for the finals of the Funny Women newcomer competition, held at the Comedy Store in London. The award was won by Miss London, whose look-at-me-but-don't-touch stage presence and strong set went down a storm with the audience. Jan Ravens, who compered with a light and witty touch, was clearly impressed by the runner-up, fellow impressionist Eve Webster, while Jo Selby came third with a fine deadpan turn in character as Russian comic Tatiana Ostrakova.
Veronica Lee
"The Bible; it goes on and on and on," says Ross Noble. "And don’t they annoy you, those people who go on and on and on..." Funny that, because the Northumbrian comic goes on and on and on himself, and by the end of this lengthy gig last night I felt like I was trapped in a broken lift with a 19th-hole bore.
Veronica Lee
The presence of an ellipsis in the title of Sean Hughes’ new show, What I Meant to Say Was..., is a clue to how the evening proceeds. He comes on stage with no announcement, chats for 90 minutes about this and that, rambles a bit when he loses his thread and frequently goes off at a tangent when he interacts with the audience. He even tells us he always talks rubbish for the 15 minutes and the show proper will begin after then.