My Name Is Gandhi

I wasn't feeling well so I was planning a night in. I had even turned down Sarah's invitiation to Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown. But it was Fat Tuesday, which is just a short walk from my house. Paul Sinha and Tiffany Stevenson were on so it was pretty tempting, and then I got  Facebook message to say that Greg Davies was going to appear too. My mind was made up!

I got there around 7:45 and got what is becoming my usual seat at the left side of the front row. A couple sat beside me, and spent the 20 minutes till show time snogging. I buried my face deeper into my Kindle! 


Greg Davies

  Nish Kumar is the new host of Fat Tuesday and he has reduced the capacity of the room, making it more comfortable, and less death trap like, however on the two visits I've made, the audiences have been smaller than in Tiernan's time. On a personal level however, this is right up my street. The smaller the better.





Joe Lycett



First up tonight was Joe Lycett, who I have never seen live, mainly because of his character in "Epic Win". He is younger looking in the flesh, and he spent some time talking about his experiences as a bisexual, as well as introducing the audience to Grindr. He asked if anyone had seen Epic Win, and it seems only two of us had. He spoke to me about it, and I felt quite horrible telling him that I hadn't seen him earlier because of this! Still, he did his Epic Win voice which was surprisingly loud (and butch) for such a slight man. He had already asked me to explain my "Who Is Virgilio Anderson" t-shirt, but I told him it would be quicker to ask Richard Herring as it is a rather long story. (He said that as Herring was rather highbrow, and that as his act was going to start with jokes about farting I had better leave.) He also spoke of the time he performed on the same bill as Jim Davidson and how he managed to make him realise that "Chink" is not an acceptable noun to use.



Tiff Stevenson

Old Rope's Tiff Stevenson was up next, though most people will know her as the runner up on "Show Me The Funny" (a series that started terribly, but got better as it went on. A sort of X Factor for professional comedians that was eventually won by Pat Monahan).
However I and other Precious Little "podophiles" know her for James' mum's bucket.

She told us of the expectations other people have of her as a woman in her thirties, such as having children, and shocked the nice middle aged couple in the 2nd row with a couple of well placed "C-bombs"



Hari Kondabolu

 After the interval we had an Asian-American comedian called Hari Kondabolu who I hadn't heard of before. However he was excellent. He was just geeky enough for me. He did a joke about chess, which got a couple of sniggers, to which he respnded with "Ah. You're a draughts audience" (he had just changed the punchline from "Checkers"

The amazing Greg Davies came on to do 15 minutes of new material, though I'm sure I have seen some of it before. Poor Greg was suffering and didn't look well at all. He apologised to the audience if they came down with anything in the next few days. He was telling us of strange nicknames that people at his school had (eg "Baghdad" because he came to school with a bag bought by his dad!) and "Bad Back Brown" (who was a kid at school who hurt is back for just one day and the name stuck). He told us he had asked audiences what nicknames they had and a camp young man said he got called "Gandhi", simply because he was gay and his name was Andy. I may well adopt that.



Paul Sinha

 Paul Sinha came to close the show. Paul always starts his shows by explaining that he is Asian, gay, a former doctor and 24th best quizzer in the country. He told us of his interviews on radio with controversial figures: one time with the deputy leader of the BNP (while in his bath) which I had heard before as well as a story where he was interviewed about Islam (which is odd as he is a Hindu) alongside Anjem Choudary, as well as the time Jim Davidson came to see his show.

A double Davidson night!

After apologising to Joe for being mean, I had a chat with Paul and Nish after the show and accompanied them towards Angel station. They are two very lovely guys as well.

I'm glad I have "rediscovered" Fat Tuesday. I used to go almost every show back in 2009 but haven't been since. I'll be back more regularly in future though.