So after realising that Craig at work went to see Bad Musical, I invited him to LQC, and he seemed quite keen. We met up with Rob at the main bar of The Phoenix, soon to be joined by Neal. We got downstairs and found we had a lovely table thanks to Muki, and awaited the show.
Dan Tetsell, Jeremy Limb, Michael Legge
I've spoken about LQC on a number of blogs, but tonight, even though, by their own admission, they were under-rehearsed, they pulled a blinder. One of the regular Cvnts, Dan Mersh was unavailable due to some actual paid work, so AIOTM's Dan Tetsell stepped in at (almost literally) the last minute, though you wouldn't have noticed. He looked like he was part of the team from day one.
The toddlers were back, as was the erotic poet Sean Goldsworthy, and of course the O'Flaherty Brothers (and Billy Sunday) who we have missed the last few shows. A highlight for me was the Daniel O'Donnell interview, played by Michael Legge and I do hope that he comes back when the Cvnts return in the Autumn.
I spoke to Paul after the show and it looks like The Trap have quite a show lined up for the Camden Fringe. You heard it here first. I'll be booking my tickets as soon as I can.
MushyBees was up next. He is the guy who plays Pam Ayers in the Precious Little podcast and has quite a unique act, combining his caricatures with bizarre short poetry. I was rather disappointed he didn't "tranny up" for the evening, but hey, you can't have everything.
FIVE FUCKING QUID!!?!?
Yet again, Richard Herring was on, making his second appearance at LQC. He started with some Christ On A Bike material which he had incorporated into the show after receiving some rather odd email from Christians who thought the show was blasphemous. He moved into some new material from his next show "What Is Love Anyway". I've seen him do a few of these before in the last couple of weeks, but whether it was the tiredness kicking in, or perhaps he just wanted to start getting things word perfect, with the correct delivery, he used a lot of notes tonight. Having said that, he was his usual high standard, and slightly scared Craig by asking him a question about eggs.
After the gig, Rob, Craig and I went to Village Soho to meet our friend Richard where I ended up paying £5 for a rather regular bottle of cider. I know drinks are getting expensive, but five fucking quid??? DO NOT GO TO THIS BAR EVER!
Glad I got that off my chest.
So farewell Cvnts. Don't forget about us while you're away, and come back in the Autumn bigger, stronger, and more shambolic than ever!
These were the words of Lost Quattros Cvnts' first ever walk out! Michael announced this to the packed out venue with a certain matter of pride towards the end of the show. To be honest, I've seen worse. I thought the Cvnts were relatively mild. And in any case, what did that lady expect to see. There's a clue in the title. And the quote will look good on the next poster.
So another month has arrived, and it was time to head down to Cvnts once more. Could it top last month's awesome gig here by Al Murray? This month we had the legendary Stephen Merchant to look forward to. I had seen him once before a year or two at The Old Queen's Head (handily situated less than 5 minutes walk from my house) as he was a secret guest at the Comedy Gold night which also featured Richard Herring and he was astounding. Michael Legge has said he was the best comedian he has ever seen when he did the circuit in the days before "The Office".
Also on the bill was Tara Flynn, who I have usually seen as one of the core performers of The London Comedy Improv, but more recently has had some success with her "Big Noise" show. OK, so Michael had announced that it would be Catie Wilkins, but there had been a terrible admin error, and Tara bravely stepped in at the last minute. We have however been promised Catie in May.
My friend Marco had to organise his works night out and asked me for some suggestions. After discounting London Comedy Improv (as it was 2 days before pay day) I told him about this, and he seemed keen. Anyway, he was running late but texted me a description of his workmates for me to say hello to. I think he underestimated the amount of people, as well as my willingness to speak to strangers.
I decided to walk to the venue. It was such a nice day and i had an hour to kill. I remember walking to town a lot last summer and will probably do this more. It gives me the illusion that I'm being healthy. Outside I met Rob, Bob, 2 of Rob's friends, Jack, and we headed downstairs. The queue took a long time to move but once we were in, I found that the always lovely Muki had organised a table for four of us right at the front. Unfortunately (logistically) 2 more people had turned up so we couldn't all fit together. I was trying to work out how to fill these seats the best I could and there was a slight awkwardness as people saw 2 empty seats at the front and kept trying to sit in them, so I decided to grab Jack and Misha from the bar and plonk them beside us.
The gig was sold out tonight. I'm quite sure this is the first time this has happened and they had to turn 40 people away. So a quick tip; if you're coming to LQC, especially when a name comedian is on, get to the venue for 7pm.
LQC came on with air flutes, passing it from one to another as the song went on. It was finally passed to a front row audience member who, judging by the sound of it, clearly had no idea how to play the air flute. Silly person. They then explained that they hadn't written any sketches (which I think turned out to be true!), but decided to plow ahead anyway. Paul and Jeremy's baby characters were both cute and funny as ever, with Jeremy's occasional ear piercing shriek taking Paul by surprise. We were also promised Elizabeth Taylor's "last ever sketch". When this arrived, the Cvnts quickly decided which roles they should play, and as they had never seen it before, excitedly launched into it. However we soon found out that Liz wasn't the Michael Jackson hugging, gay-loving superstar we thought she was, unleashing a torrent of foul language and homophobic abuse, much to The Cvnts embarrassment. I think it was as this point the "digusted" lady left. We got Sean Goldsworthy again, this time reading his classic "homoeroticker", which was equally hilarious and arousing, no matter what your sexual orientation.
Tara Flynn was the first guest, and as usual, her charm shone through. She played four songs: Bjork Song, The Fog From The Film The Fog, Custard, and a fantastic (thought slightly shambolic) Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue parody, backed by Precious Little's James Hingley on guitar, and joined by Michael on vocals. As Michael said later when I asked about this video, it was something "you had to be there" for, but I think it's worth preserving this in people's memories. By the way, sorry about the enormous glass but it was a hot night!
Landfill Hill
Custard
The interval was next. To be honest, I've had better. I felt I didn't make the most of it, and will definitely try harder next month.
It was time to announce the special guest. It wasn't a huge secret so hardly a surprise, but Stephen Merchant got a huge round of applause. He started by talking about when he first became famous, and the various articles he had appeared on, showing us his first ever picture in a national newspaper (he had disappeared out of the top of the frame) and his first interview, where he was called Stephen Mitchell. He also told us about an article after he had been spotted dancing. Unfortunately this was rather spoiled by someone shouting out "albatross". If you're going to heckle, make it funny. Don't just say the punchline to the joke! Twat.
He explained that the purpose of his upcoming tour was to find a wife, and told us all about the difficulties he has in his sex life at the moment, mainly related to his height.
A super night out indeed. Michael gave us clues at the end who the special guest for next month is. I won't repeat them here, mainly because Paul doesn't seem as confident that they'll get him. (Damn - that's a clue - he's a man. Or is he?) Suffice to say that if they manage it, for me, this will be the bext special guest they have ever had (bear in mind they've already had Jason Manford, Al Murray, Richard Herring and now Stephen Merchant)
Buy Tara Flynn's album, and to finish, here is her video clip of "The Fog From The Film The Fog"
Los Quattros Cvnts is one of my favourite comedy nights on the first Wednesday of the month at The Phoenix in central London. I've written about it before here and here. Fun, silly, and extremely friendly. I brought along Cvnts virgins Ken, my big brother, and Priscilla who I work with as well as meeting up with a couple of Cvnts stalwarts - Sir Bob, Graham, Neal and Rob.
After a now traditional bit of grub in the Old Explorer opposite, we headed into the extremely busy Phoenix and lurked by the door. We were called downstairs at 7:15, which was remarkably early, although we soon realised this was so we could stand on the stairs. This was actually lovely as it was a lot cooler and less noisy here.
Thanks to the ever lovely Muki, we got seats right at the front. This worried my brother and I reassured him that it was safe and he wouldn't be picked on! Although having watched an Al Murray DVD earlier in the day, he didn't believe me.
The Cvnts opened with a sketch about the film Inception, but having never seen the film, it went a little over my head. Michael had said before the gig that he was exhausted from his travel to the far east but luckily had to drink a can of Red Bull in this sketch. What a stroke of luck. It's almost like he wrote that in deliberately! The moved on to a job interview sketch where the job being interviewed for was job interviewer. This was pretty intricate involving Dan and Jeremy playing three characters at once. I think I mentioned before about some of The Trap's sketches reminding me of The Two Ronnies, and this was another great ronniesque sketch.
Paul and Jeremy's jaded babies were back, and then it was the turn of the extremely erotic Sean Goldsworthy, with another attempt at "choose your own" erotica where he asked a member of the audience to pick from the options he had written. When I saw Paul do this last month I had assumed he had scripted it so it would always be the same, but he has in fact written pages of it, and his "jump to page 44" instructions are totally genuine.
Jo Neary closed the first half with some character based comedy, my favourite of which was the new comedian who had just finished a comedy course.
Interval time next, and it was so good I can't figure out words to describe it. But quite possibly the best interval ever. Then again, there was that interval in the late '90s I remember so clearly, so scratch that. The interval was alright I guess though.
During the interval, Paul had mentioned it was a shame they didn't have time to do one of the sketches, but luckily they managed to fit it in for the second half. Dan was reading us a story from Fiesta to let us know the literary merit of such porn stories, while Paul was revising his London A-Z. This was a lot of fun with Tourettes style interjections of "Cockfosters" and "Mudchute". Very very silly, and a lot of fun.
Finally it was time for Al Murray to perform. I think everyone in the room was very excited. Usually at LQC the headline act will be someone known in the comedy scene, but it's rare they get a household name. I guess the only person as big as Al that's been on there would be Jason Manford quite a long time ago (He was superb by the way)
Al confirmed to us that he's one of the best comedians around to riff off the audience and the first 40 minutes or so was just him talking to us and obviously giving us some cheeky abuse. He noticed Priscilla's pint, asked her what it is, and told her that it was unacceptable. He picked it up, and to Priscilla's astonishment, downed it! He also cnofiscated a glass of white wine from a lad in the second row. He sent a young lad with emo type hair that he had already nicknamed "Crowboy" to the bar with a tenner out of his own pocket to get a replacement and came back with a white wine for Priscilla, although I ended up sneakily drinking it when Al wasn't looking. After abusing people for their lack of "proper" jobs (such as marketing, publishing, and writing for Torchwood - or Touchcloth as Al named it) he went on to ask us to name any country in the world and he would explain why Britain was better which he managed to do with an impressive knowledge of history!
After the gig we had a brief chat with Mr Murray at the bar, who by now had changed out of his landlord's uniform and was now sporting a rather dapper hat, and I mentioned to him that Priscilla was unaware of "the rules" and he told us that for the landlord, there are no exceptions. Very funny man and a true gent.
Next month the special guest will be a rather tall man who works with "extras" in movies and used to have an "office job. You'd be totally mental not to come. See you there!
I was going to do a blog about the October LQC show, but I just didn't get around to it. It's now fading fast from my memory, so roughly it was grub at Old Explorer, the vegan fisherman with no food for his starving Paul Lichfield toddler, We Need Attention, Collins and Herring in attendance, Caroline Mabey, pork eye / poor guy (shades of Jimi Hendrix there), Ladies and gentlemen... please welcome... Miss Barbara Toronto, Colin Hoult's ex army character Andy " don't worry I'm not gonna do any of that poofy stuff" Parker, portraits of TMNTs, Jeremy Limb's new radio sitcom "Down The Pole", drinking upstairs, perhaps slightly offending Muki by telling her that although I enjoyed the night as always, I had seen the Cvnts do better shows, and going home.
Anyway November has arrived and so did a tube strike. This would not deter the Cvnts. Nor me. I got on a trusty number 73 bus and ended up snarled up in traffic in Pentonville Road. I got off the bus and walked to Kings Cross and found the entrance to the tube was shut. Seems that even KX had been affected by the strike. The bus caught up with me after 10 minutes and I got back on, only to get off again in Gower Street when I got off again. I walked to the Olde Explorer..
I know it's a boring start to this blog, but it was also a boring start to the evening, so tough. I was also going to write a "then I got off the bus" joke but couldn't really be bothered.
Met up for grub with Neal, Graham, Roop, and we were finally joined by Hitch. Turns out Hitch managed to tube it from Kings Cross to Oxford Circus and it was fine all along. They had just shut my entrance, so that slightly irked me. Last time I saw Hitch he was smashing my ukulele to bits (I was informed last month by Graham that actually missed the ground with one of his Paul Simenon strikes. Now that I would have liked to have seen !)
Anyway, on we went to the Phoenix and outside bumped into the ever lovely cvnt Paul Litchfield. He seemed visibly excited when I told him of Hitch's "Belm" T-shirt. I had already had to get Hitch to explain what it meant as I haven't listened to as much of The Trap as I should.
The Cvnts came on and we were soon straight into hardcore political satire involving spending cuts (they had to drop Dan from their workforce.). This was followed by a sketch involving Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta being told by her agent to choose a new name for her career (luckily Michael explained this was Lady Gaga's real name.) This had shades of Eddie Izzard's Englebert Humperdink routine, with Michael suggesting many and varied ideas to Stefani (Paul) most of which he hadn't heard, which led to much corpsing to our delight. Amongst many suggestions were:
Patrick Troughton
Jug Norris
Arthur Vagina
Michael J Badger
Professor Dress
That Little Arab Boy
Bank Piss
Titty
Little Chip
which ended with an amazing "poltical twist" involving the punchline "Tony Blairs"
Mr Nougat (real name Arnold Bawden) went down a storm. Arnold is an extremely bitter old children's entertainer from the music hall era tormented by the lovely, silly, dotty Mr Nougat "I am in a muddle". If the Cvnts read this, make sure you bring him back for another show.
We were teated to a new TV panel show "Mock The Antiques" where Dan Mersh's temporary replacement Aisling Bea played a rather posh lady trying to get her antiques valued while Paul's Russell "That would be weird, wouldn't it" Howard and Michael's Andy "It looks like something Gordon Brown would shit in" Parsons. This Andy Parsons got one of the biggest laughs of the night and I would definitely lie to see him again! Michael's costume was very well put together comprising of a post it note with the word "bald" written on it, and Andy's topical references moving further back in time was a great touch.
I think I speak for everyone to say how glad I was to see the return of Sean Goldsworthy, Cornwall's 4th most erotic purveyor of online "eroticker". Listening to his story of Jack Shield provided many laughs and slight arousal.
"Some say his mother had been struck by lightning. Other people didn't say that"
Robin Ince came on after the break to a now traditional dance from the Cvnts. Robin quite surprisingly managed to remain quite non-plussed by this lunacy and launched into his fantastically shambolic rambling routine. As usual, he only got through about 3 of his cards out of an entire handful.
Now - a note for your diary. 21st November sees "Edinburgh In A Day" at The Phoenix - a benefit for Shelter - running from 2pm onwards which promises a fantastic line up including Robin Ince and Michael Legge's "Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire", as well as 2 BIG name comedians to open and close the show. Follow Michael on Twitter to get updates about this as they happen.
See you there!
Oh - Los Quattros Cvnts have a Facebook group. Don't be a cunt, be a cvnt and join it now.
I was in a great mood yesterday. I had change in my pocket and even though I was rushing from Wandsworth to the West End in order to get to the Phoenix by 7.30, I had time to stop and give a pound to a smiling homeless guy with a dog. I don't give money often enough to nice smiling homeless people so this made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The evening would end slightly differently
I got to the venue in record time and met up with @RobOxley and @Tainted_Harmony and her two friends. The queue for the basement was rather large and slow-moving but we got there in the end and nabbed our special reserved table (after Muki hassled the poor guy who was sitting at it). Anyway we were soon joined by @misswiz and @kateweb and the show began...
The Cvnts are a sketch troupe made up from Michael Legge of Precious Little and Dan Mersh, Jeremy Limb and Paul Litchfield of The Trap and they perform together on the first Wednesday of the month at The Phoenix (home of the still to be blogged about London Comedy Improv). Guests they have had previously include Andrew Collins, Jason Manford, Robin Ince and Jeremy Lion, and this week saw the mighty Richard Herring close the show.
The Cvnts threw in a number of great sketches this time including Michael and Jeremy unsure whether the "animal sketch" was one about animal porn or animal vets, Paul's cornish homoerotica (eroticker) and Dan trying to get Doctor Pub to give advice to viewers problems (though I did miss Doctor Party - please bring him back.)
The handover to Herring included a great sketch where various rather posh lords were meeting and chatting about their more famous wives, including Lord Gaga, Lord Sovereign, and *ahem* Lord Boy! Naturally Herring had to trump them all and arrived as King Latifah!
I've seen Richard Herring a number of times, downloaded the podcasts, read the blogs, bought the book, bought the DVDs, and, yes, bought the T-shirt so I'm quite familiar with hs work, but he always, but always makes me laugh. I think it's a combination of his stage personality which can range from insecure ("I just want to be back on the telly") to full on ranting in the blink of an eye. Even @Tainted_Harmony's grumpy friend cracked a smile (so I'm told!). I particularly loved how he could still shock and surprise this audience of mainly liberal comedy regulars with his routine about having small hands, the size of a 7 year old girl's, and to the dark fantasies where this led.
After the show I spent some time with Rob and Vicky outside with Paul Litchfield (who very rarely appears to switch off) before we headed inside for a lovely time chatting with Michael and James and the ever-lovely Ewen Macintosh who had managed to survive a potentially awkward situation where he had to buy 'The Office' DVDs in a shop. I'm not sure if he felt the need to excuse himself to the shop assistant and come up with some excuse for buying his own DVD, but I like to imagine he did. By the way, it wasn't for him - it was a present for someone and he could only get Ricky Gervais to sign it that day.
I got the bus home, but rather predictably fell asleep and woke up in Seven Sisters. The wait for the bus took ages but Twitter managed to entertain me. I was grumpy though. Especially when a Scottish man gestured at me when i had my earphones on. I assumed he wanted a light so I fumbled in my pockets for my lighter. He still looked like he wanted more so I unplugged myself and it turned out he wanted a whole roll-up ! How rude. Well I was happy to give it to him and I guess he worked out that I was also from Scotland. "Where are you from?" he said. Now the only reason Scottish people ask me that is to see if they know the town I grew up in and regale me with stories of their home town. I wasn't interested. "Angel", I said, simultaneously putting my headphones back on. He looked disappointed. I was getting grumpier.
Then another man appeared to be staring at my face, slightly too closely, obviously saying things. I unplugged myself again and he was saying "Give me a couple of quid.". Not asking me nicely, but almost ordering me to. I didn't know if he was a polite mugger or a fucking rude beggar. He clearly wasn't homeless, so I told him I didn't have anything to spare. Which was true. Yes I had loads of change. But I wasn't going to spare any to this dick. We were at an impasse.
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Fucking tight stingy bastard!"
He walked off and although my meeting with this guy was vastly different to the lovely homeless man I had met earlier I was glad I didn't give him my money. It made me warm and fuzzy inside.
The Cvnts are taking a break for the summer but will be back at The Phoenix in September.
