The Comedy Crawl - Day 2

Danielle Ward

I shook off my hangover around 2ish and headed back to Camden. My basic plan was to stick around Belushi's and head to Improv in the evening. At Belushi's I caught the last half of Tim Fitzhigham. I had never seen him before but he was delighting the crowd with his tales of naval exploits and zebra crossings.

Thom Tuck

I found Neal, Nicola and Rob at the front for the next act and managed to get a seat on the comfy sofa just before Sarah Kendall came on. She's an Australian comic. She has an amazing head of red hair which led her to tell us about the fact that English people are either repulsed by it, or turns into a weird fetish. She also told us of her worst heckle when an audience member said he was going to basically sexually assault her. It was slightly uncomfortable to listen to but she managed to make it funny. Her idea for a hip hop video with loads of hot gay guys gangbanging was hilarious too especially when she said that she hadn't written the song yet but she expected it would be about how great she is.

Thom Tuck was on next. I won't go into details as you can read about his show here. He was soon followed by Danielle Ward who was fantastically filthy. Her voice sounds like a mixture of innocence and sarcasm, and when telling us a story about her first sexual experience wanking a man into a bin, she heard a child in the audience and got visibly worried. When told the child was only 3 and wouldn't understand a huge cheer erupted from the crowd. It turned out later that the child was Shappi Khorsandi's!

I decided to follow the other 3 to The Camden Head. I got a pint and went towards the stairs only to be told it was full. Typical. I was now in a noisy pub i didn't really like with a pint I didn't really want. Anyway I decided best course of action was to down it as quickly as I could and head back to Belushi's.

Shappi Khorsandi

I got there just in time to catch the end of a set by an Australian comic who was a bit shouty and aggressive for my liking, but Shappi followed next. I had only seen her live once before which was at All day Edinburgh which was rather shambolic, but today she was on top form. She heard a girl in the audience laugh and pointed out it was the cutest laugh she had ever heard. She invited her up on stage to have a chat and the girl told her that her mum was a huge fan of hers. Is that a good thing to hear? I'm not sure! Later when asked what she did for a living she said that she didn't want to say "in case I have to help someone who is unwell". Obviously she was a doctor and Shappi questioned the sincerity of the Hippocratic oath that she took. She brought her little boy on to stage at the end of her show which was a rather cute moment, though Shappi told us that it was so nice it was even making herself sick.

John, Michael & Brendan

After a quick refuel at Costa Coffee we headed to Theatro Technis to catch The London Comedy Improv. They perform at the Phoenix on the last Wednesday of every month and are well worth a visit. Like all improv shows they rely on suggestions from the audience to base their sketches around, so I started thinking. Tonight the cast was Brendan Dempsey, Tara Flynn, Michael Legge, Kirsty Newton, Rufus Hound, John Voce and Tiernan Douieb.

Among the sketches we got were a day in the life of Jacob (one of the audience members) who had told us what he did, his aspirations and where he worked, as well as John doing a song about dinosaurs in a Nigerian accent which not many would be brave enough to do. Michael's face during this was a picture.

Michael, Tara, Rufus & Kirsty

John, Michael, Kirsty, Tiernan, Brendan & Tara

We stayed for the 2nd show and when it started there were only 8 in the audience. Luckily as the show went on more people joined us. My suggestion of "Ridicule is nothing to be scared of" brought on a good sketch, though it ended with Michael telling us he hated Adam Ant.

The sketch that brought the house down involved John being shouted at for around 5 minutes by Michael, as Michael "apologised" for all the awful things he had done to him, ending with a line about cum. A few people left at this point, and Tara asked them "Was it the cum?" However I don't think it was a genuine walkout. I think they were just moving on to another venue, but for the purposes of this blog lets say they stormed out disgusted (They didn't)

After the show, myself, Nicola and Neal went for a beer in a local pub (with no music or comedy) with Tara, Michael, John and Carl (aka Mr Flynn) and it was a lovely way to round off the evening. I headed home stopping by Belushi's to try and catch some of Rich Hall but it was so busy I was stuck behind a pillar and couldn't see a thing, and made the correct decision to wander back to Camden Town tube.

Top Acts: All of London Comedy Improv, Shappi Khorsandi, Sarah Kendall, Danielle Ward and Thom Tuck.