Comedy I've seen in the last two months
Dec. 1st, 2010 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phantym_56I meant to do this a while back and then didn't bother; figured it may as well wait until all seven were done. My 2010 comedy (give or take Godless Christmas) finished last night. So, in alphabetical order, the seven comedians I've seen since the beginning of October. Obviously I saw Ed too but he got his own post because I didn't see him locally.
Ardal O'Hanlon
I have trouble seeing this lovely man as a comedian. I'm used to him primarily as Thermoman (hence the same problem with Hugh "Dr Piers" Dennis) and also as Father Dougal (although I haven't seen a lot of Father Ted). My mum, who feels the same, thinks he's too big and too famous to play our local parochial theatre.
He was lovely. He did very well with what struck me as a rather unresponsive audience. Lovely as he is, and it wasn't his fault at all, I did fear he was dying on stage. He didn't, of course. He's too good for that. I was in the third row and got a lovely view of him. I tried not to think it but he did remind me of Ed Byrne - it's not just the matching accent, it's the way he phrases things and the way he seems to think. It's a very similar style of comedy. Not as bouncy or as giggly though. He even did similar routines. "Sleep is my favourite thing in the world" and another one that I've forgotten now that I recognised the beginning. But that's how comedy works. Certain subjects come up again and again, it's how it's done that makes the difference. He wanted a second round of applause when it started and he did the best ever treatment of latecomers. Not just made them give him an extra clap "to catch up with everyone else" but also got them to do a bear impression by telling them that everyone else has done it and they needed to make up. And there was someone in the audience who claimed to be "Oirish". Needless to say, he promptly told them that no one truly Irish pronounces it "Oirish". And he's the only Irisher I've ever heard to pronounce "anything" the way Ed does.
Brendon Burns
Our "parochial theatre" has a capacity of 478, if my counting on the seating plan is accurate. Brendon Burns managed.... 64. If we'd actually wanted to sit next to each other, we wouldn't have filled the first four rows. I was horrified. Half an hour before the show started, I was the first one to arrive at the theatre. Fifteen minutes before, there were 3 of us. Ten minutes before he's due on stage, there are 18 of us.
Anyway, he didn't mind. He said he really should have done the "McIntyre fucking Roadshow". Proclaimed us one of the best audiences he's had on this tour and when we made cynical noises he said we had very low self-esteem and we really were. I can't truthfully say he was the funniest comedian I've ever seen but the way he won over a very small, very quiet audience was phenomenal. He was selling books in the interval, said normally he limits it to one per person but... "Look at you! Have as many as you want" and was then astonished that almost everyone in the entire audience bought one. He suspected there was a bit of sympathy. Also signed my t-shirt and drew a really bad love heart on it. Anyway, the second half went much better. He won us over completely and I never expected to be so utterly moved by the end. Bless him. I went to see him because I'd heard of him (he said we must be very comedy-savvy and really know our stuff to know who he was), knowing only that I wasn't hugely keen on him - he doesn't make a good impression on Ed's DVD commentary - and came out liking him immensely.
Speaking of Ed, trying to get it through my dad's head that not every comedian whose surname begins with B is related to him is impossible. It took months before he realised he and Brendon are not brothers and once I'd managed that, I got "So, what's Ed Byrne's brother's name?" "Paul," I said, "and he's not a comedian." "Oh..." I could feel it coming so I jumped in. "You're thinking of Jason Byrne. They're not related." "Oh. Aren't they?"
Chris Addison
I'd seen him before, right at the beginning of this tour. He was brilliant, as always. Coughing a lot less this time - he had the beginnings of what sounded like a pretty bad chest infection when I saw him in February. The entire first half of the show had gone; not a mention of Wilting Lillies, although there was a new segment on falling down the stairs at Edinburgh. The new first half was mostly improvised from audience interaction. I barely recognised it as the same show. And like last time, I was exhausted by the end. There's something very tiring about laughing at Chris for two hours. He had a wireless mic this time, last time I was concerned about him falling over it. There was a glorious bit in the middle, in the (new) bit about how the longer the name of the university, the less likely it is to be any good and someone at our local uni made the most hopelessly despairing groaning noise at having to be a student at said uni. Also, during the Q&A at the end, someone asked if he was wearing slippers and said they'd been completely distracted by wondering that throughout the entire show. I think you can imagine how a comedian might react to that.
And there was a fairy-light curtain behind him and he got horrendously distracted by it every time he turned round - "That's nice. I've always wanted to play on a cruise ship!"
The special bit was afterwards. I waited outside for him, scurried after him, stopped him and then was suddenly seized with a case of blind-eyes. He was wearing a coat and glasses and I actually said to him "... Are you Chris Addison?" Having sat in the third row, having been here before, I asked him if he was Chris Addison. He took it very well. I also asked if he'd sign my t-shirt. Actually, what I said was "Will you sign my t-shirt? I've got a hoop." "... You've got a what? A hoop?" Once I'd handed it to him and he'd realised what I meant by a hoop (an embroidery hoop to stretch the fabric so you don't need, say, a comedian's wife to help you stretch it while the comedian tries to write his name on it), he was quite impressed. So I embarrassed myself quite a bit in front of him but he took it very nicely.
Dara O Briain
I'd seen him before as well but in a different venue. This one was sort of bigger. Again, a fairly unresponsive audience. He yelled at us at one point, called us all fuckers and said we seemed to fall asleep in the second half although we perked up just before the end. One woman (in the front row, much to the mortification of her daughter) fell asleep in the front row. He left her to it until he got to the 2012 routine at which point he woke her up because if she missed it, she'd miss the point of the final punchline. He understands that audiences have peaks and troughs in their energy levels so he didn't take it too badly.
He said we were the nerdiest audience he'd ever had. The people picked out were a satellite maker (who has to have air showers before work every day), a forensic computer analyst (who goes through computers to find the really bad stuff), the person who saved a life was a person who works in a lab crossmatching blood samples for transfusions. Incidentally, his blood type is O-.
Other than the audience bits, I didn't notice a lot of difference in the scripted bits from one half of the tour to the other but it was much the same length of time as between seeing Chris. Odd how some comedians change the show and others don't.
Rich Hall
Same theatre as Brendon but sold out. I know this because I got the last ticket, a good two months before the show. I went because I saw him in Zurich and took umbrage at the fact that he said "Look out Switzerland or Kraft'll take your Toblerone" when Kraft have owned Toblerone for years. I sent him a message via Ed Byrne and was sort of hoping to hear whether or not it got through. It was a completely different show, although chocolate still got a routine. But of course, we were a much more willing audience than the Zurich one who didn't really take to him properly.
He's awesome. I particularly love that he's still angry about some of the things Stephen Fry's said. In American, they don't have anyone like Stephen Fry. If Stephen Fry tells us [ludicrous made-up fact], we go "Oh, really?" and believe it. And it's quite clear that he's thinking of the thing with the moons, which makes certain QI repeats all the funnier, knowing that he's still angry so many years later that there are 2 moons/5 moons/1 moon/however many moons Stephen says there are this week. And he laughed - it's weird and endearing seeing Rich Hall smiling and laughing. He was selling books afterwards in the lobby - signed my t-shirt and was impressed by my hoop. I like seeing comedians' reactions to my hoop. Also, I was bristling a little because if he hadn't been selling books, not a single person would have waited to see him afterwards except me. And he sang and played keyboard and guitar. And he was wearing hiking boots. Rich, you just tickled two of my kinks there.
Ross Noble
It seemed the entire show was improvised. It was almost impossible to spot a bit he'd written. I was well aware that if anyone else was up on that stage talking the nonsense he was, it wouldn't be funny. It was like a drunk mate. And yet it was hysterically funny. He's incredibly clever and yet plays so daft. He lost track of what he was trying to say, kept coming back to "bollocky pig-foot". Absolute madcap. There was no way I could come out of that a) not giggling or b) able to remember any of it. Possibly my favourite of the seven.
Stewart Francis
The problem with this one was that the night I went to see him, I was really sick with the flu and had massive difficulties a) breathing and b) paying attention. His warm-up, Matt Rudge, was adorable. Once he's been on Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week, he's destined to be big. He did remind me of Russell Howard but less self-consciously wacky. Might just be because he's blonde and from Somerset. At Ealing, some of the jokes really crashed but here they didn't. I'd heard about 80% of it before, either on Mock the Week or at Ealing and I wanted to laugh but that just made me cough worse than ever, so I settled for the most ridiculous tooth-grin in the world. I like him a lot and I wish I could see him again when I'm actually feeling up to appreciating him.
Ardal O'Hanlon
I have trouble seeing this lovely man as a comedian. I'm used to him primarily as Thermoman (hence the same problem with Hugh "Dr Piers" Dennis) and also as Father Dougal (although I haven't seen a lot of Father Ted). My mum, who feels the same, thinks he's too big and too famous to play our local parochial theatre.
He was lovely. He did very well with what struck me as a rather unresponsive audience. Lovely as he is, and it wasn't his fault at all, I did fear he was dying on stage. He didn't, of course. He's too good for that. I was in the third row and got a lovely view of him. I tried not to think it but he did remind me of Ed Byrne - it's not just the matching accent, it's the way he phrases things and the way he seems to think. It's a very similar style of comedy. Not as bouncy or as giggly though. He even did similar routines. "Sleep is my favourite thing in the world" and another one that I've forgotten now that I recognised the beginning. But that's how comedy works. Certain subjects come up again and again, it's how it's done that makes the difference. He wanted a second round of applause when it started and he did the best ever treatment of latecomers. Not just made them give him an extra clap "to catch up with everyone else" but also got them to do a bear impression by telling them that everyone else has done it and they needed to make up. And there was someone in the audience who claimed to be "Oirish". Needless to say, he promptly told them that no one truly Irish pronounces it "Oirish". And he's the only Irisher I've ever heard to pronounce "anything" the way Ed does.
Brendon Burns
Our "parochial theatre" has a capacity of 478, if my counting on the seating plan is accurate. Brendon Burns managed.... 64. If we'd actually wanted to sit next to each other, we wouldn't have filled the first four rows. I was horrified. Half an hour before the show started, I was the first one to arrive at the theatre. Fifteen minutes before, there were 3 of us. Ten minutes before he's due on stage, there are 18 of us.
Anyway, he didn't mind. He said he really should have done the "McIntyre fucking Roadshow". Proclaimed us one of the best audiences he's had on this tour and when we made cynical noises he said we had very low self-esteem and we really were. I can't truthfully say he was the funniest comedian I've ever seen but the way he won over a very small, very quiet audience was phenomenal. He was selling books in the interval, said normally he limits it to one per person but... "Look at you! Have as many as you want" and was then astonished that almost everyone in the entire audience bought one. He suspected there was a bit of sympathy. Also signed my t-shirt and drew a really bad love heart on it. Anyway, the second half went much better. He won us over completely and I never expected to be so utterly moved by the end. Bless him. I went to see him because I'd heard of him (he said we must be very comedy-savvy and really know our stuff to know who he was), knowing only that I wasn't hugely keen on him - he doesn't make a good impression on Ed's DVD commentary - and came out liking him immensely.
Speaking of Ed, trying to get it through my dad's head that not every comedian whose surname begins with B is related to him is impossible. It took months before he realised he and Brendon are not brothers and once I'd managed that, I got "So, what's Ed Byrne's brother's name?" "Paul," I said, "and he's not a comedian." "Oh..." I could feel it coming so I jumped in. "You're thinking of Jason Byrne. They're not related." "Oh. Aren't they?"
Chris Addison
I'd seen him before, right at the beginning of this tour. He was brilliant, as always. Coughing a lot less this time - he had the beginnings of what sounded like a pretty bad chest infection when I saw him in February. The entire first half of the show had gone; not a mention of Wilting Lillies, although there was a new segment on falling down the stairs at Edinburgh. The new first half was mostly improvised from audience interaction. I barely recognised it as the same show. And like last time, I was exhausted by the end. There's something very tiring about laughing at Chris for two hours. He had a wireless mic this time, last time I was concerned about him falling over it. There was a glorious bit in the middle, in the (new) bit about how the longer the name of the university, the less likely it is to be any good and someone at our local uni made the most hopelessly despairing groaning noise at having to be a student at said uni. Also, during the Q&A at the end, someone asked if he was wearing slippers and said they'd been completely distracted by wondering that throughout the entire show. I think you can imagine how a comedian might react to that.
And there was a fairy-light curtain behind him and he got horrendously distracted by it every time he turned round - "That's nice. I've always wanted to play on a cruise ship!"
The special bit was afterwards. I waited outside for him, scurried after him, stopped him and then was suddenly seized with a case of blind-eyes. He was wearing a coat and glasses and I actually said to him "... Are you Chris Addison?" Having sat in the third row, having been here before, I asked him if he was Chris Addison. He took it very well. I also asked if he'd sign my t-shirt. Actually, what I said was "Will you sign my t-shirt? I've got a hoop." "... You've got a what? A hoop?" Once I'd handed it to him and he'd realised what I meant by a hoop (an embroidery hoop to stretch the fabric so you don't need, say, a comedian's wife to help you stretch it while the comedian tries to write his name on it), he was quite impressed. So I embarrassed myself quite a bit in front of him but he took it very nicely.
Dara O Briain
I'd seen him before as well but in a different venue. This one was sort of bigger. Again, a fairly unresponsive audience. He yelled at us at one point, called us all fuckers and said we seemed to fall asleep in the second half although we perked up just before the end. One woman (in the front row, much to the mortification of her daughter) fell asleep in the front row. He left her to it until he got to the 2012 routine at which point he woke her up because if she missed it, she'd miss the point of the final punchline. He understands that audiences have peaks and troughs in their energy levels so he didn't take it too badly.
He said we were the nerdiest audience he'd ever had. The people picked out were a satellite maker (who has to have air showers before work every day), a forensic computer analyst (who goes through computers to find the really bad stuff), the person who saved a life was a person who works in a lab crossmatching blood samples for transfusions. Incidentally, his blood type is O-.
Other than the audience bits, I didn't notice a lot of difference in the scripted bits from one half of the tour to the other but it was much the same length of time as between seeing Chris. Odd how some comedians change the show and others don't.
Rich Hall
Same theatre as Brendon but sold out. I know this because I got the last ticket, a good two months before the show. I went because I saw him in Zurich and took umbrage at the fact that he said "Look out Switzerland or Kraft'll take your Toblerone" when Kraft have owned Toblerone for years. I sent him a message via Ed Byrne and was sort of hoping to hear whether or not it got through. It was a completely different show, although chocolate still got a routine. But of course, we were a much more willing audience than the Zurich one who didn't really take to him properly.
He's awesome. I particularly love that he's still angry about some of the things Stephen Fry's said. In American, they don't have anyone like Stephen Fry. If Stephen Fry tells us [ludicrous made-up fact], we go "Oh, really?" and believe it. And it's quite clear that he's thinking of the thing with the moons, which makes certain QI repeats all the funnier, knowing that he's still angry so many years later that there are 2 moons/5 moons/1 moon/however many moons Stephen says there are this week. And he laughed - it's weird and endearing seeing Rich Hall smiling and laughing. He was selling books afterwards in the lobby - signed my t-shirt and was impressed by my hoop. I like seeing comedians' reactions to my hoop. Also, I was bristling a little because if he hadn't been selling books, not a single person would have waited to see him afterwards except me. And he sang and played keyboard and guitar. And he was wearing hiking boots. Rich, you just tickled two of my kinks there.
Ross Noble
It seemed the entire show was improvised. It was almost impossible to spot a bit he'd written. I was well aware that if anyone else was up on that stage talking the nonsense he was, it wouldn't be funny. It was like a drunk mate. And yet it was hysterically funny. He's incredibly clever and yet plays so daft. He lost track of what he was trying to say, kept coming back to "bollocky pig-foot". Absolute madcap. There was no way I could come out of that a) not giggling or b) able to remember any of it. Possibly my favourite of the seven.
Stewart Francis
The problem with this one was that the night I went to see him, I was really sick with the flu and had massive difficulties a) breathing and b) paying attention. His warm-up, Matt Rudge, was adorable. Once he's been on Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week, he's destined to be big. He did remind me of Russell Howard but less self-consciously wacky. Might just be because he's blonde and from Somerset. At Ealing, some of the jokes really crashed but here they didn't. I'd heard about 80% of it before, either on Mock the Week or at Ealing and I wanted to laugh but that just made me cough worse than ever, so I settled for the most ridiculous tooth-grin in the world. I like him a lot and I wish I could see him again when I'm actually feeling up to appreciating him.
