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.

All Day Edinburgh - a benefit for Shelter

All Day Edinburgh is the brainchild of Michael Legge, who announced on Twitter a few weeks ago that there was an amazing gig coming up. We were all on the edge of our seats for days until "All Day Edinburgh" was revealed to the world. This was to be a benefit in aid of Shelter, the homeless charity and the aim was to recreate the Edinburgh Fringe in a single day. Some great acts were announced with a couple unable to be revealed as they were THAT GOOD ! Michael had already told me after the Los Quattros Cvnts gig that there was to be a big opener and a big closer, and he wouldn't say any more. However, later in the evening I did hear the name Stewart Lee and got quite excited. I then found out that there was no Stewart Lee, but I was still excited!

The day was to begin in a rather traditional (for me and Neal) Phoenix way with Sunday lunch at The Explorer. This was probably the best idea we had bearing in mind the endrance test of booze we were about to undertake. We were joined by Graham, Hitch, and Sir Bob, as well as Woolhouse, Sedgebeer and Vicky H. Vicky seemed to take great delight in giving me one of her now infamous (to me anyway) "boob hugs". I won't say any more about that.

Before we go any further, all the crappy out of focus pictures were taken by me on my crappy out of focus phone. All the good ones were taken by Neal Peters and the entire set can be seen here.

Acts that had been revealed for ADE included Tony Law, Penny Dreadfuls, Pappys, Dan Antopolski, Paul Sinha, Sara Pascoe, Nick Helm, Hour Of Telly Live, Tara Flynn, Mat Ricardo, Jim Bob, Alex Horne, Colin Hoult,  Storytellers, Caroline Mabey, Robin Ince & Michael Legge, and The Trap.

Vicky Hook

Hitch

For me this was great news as all the comedians from that list that I have seen I have enjoyed greatly, and there are a few on the list that I have never seen such as Helm, Pascoe, Penny Dreadfuls, and Pappys that I have never seen but only ever heard good things about. And for a man of my age, the chance to see Jim Bob is not one to pass up. We ALL loved Carter USM in the 90s you know.

Michael Legge

Michael warmed us up with a nice anti-Edinburgh, anti-homeless and anti-comedian rant before the first act Nick Helm came on. I had missed Nick at the opening night of Sunday Comedy at the New Red Lion Theatre At first I was a little unsure about him as he opened with a lot of shouting. but once he moved into his first song about a girl he likes having a hot boyfriend who made her look fat, his vulnerability started to come through. Watching Nick made me glad for once that I didn't have a front row seat as his intensity was pretty intimidating, dragging one lad on to stage to sing a sing as well as bringing a girl on stage where he spoke to her through a tin can telephone. When she was asked about her favourite canned food, she told him it was mushy peas to which he responded that they were much better than having whole peas in a can due to all the draining involved. In fact all the draining was draining. Excellent stuff.

Next up, was An Hour Of Telly Live who are a duo comprised of Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Zoe Gardner who perform some telly for us. Live. Michael was less of a compere, and more of a fan when he introduced them and Robin Ince had tweeted when he was on his way that he hoped he hadn't missed them. A great fun show, well worth seeing, even if only for the line "Your teeth are cunts".

Caroline Mabey  was up next with a routine all about breakfast with an accompanying slide show whch discussed "Breakfacts" and "Breakfantasties". The self-importance of breakfast describing itself as the most important meal of the day was discusssed as well as it inpinging into the other meals due to the rise of the all-day breakfast. Caroline is quite unique in her delivery, giving us a mixture of straight forward jokes along with her surreal narrative.

Next up was Interval #1. I've had intervals before and this was a fairly standard one. I bought a beer, had a cigarette and kind of hung around. Not bad. But I wasn't ready for an interval at this stage and could have done without it.

Robin Ince

After the rather adequate interval came Robin Ince & Michael Legge with their "Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire" show. Robin started by reading one of his clever books before being interrupted from the off-stage Michael, asking what the fuck he was doing? I've seen these guys perform both seperately and together many times and would recommend you to see them if you can. It's nice to see Robin abandon his usual book / science / philosophy based shows and concentrate on screaming "cunt" at the top of his voice. Definite shades of Mayall/Edmonson here (which is a tribute - not a criticism!) This set had an surprisingly touching end to it where Robin explained that All Day Edinburgh was actually his idea, however Michael had actually gone ahead and organised it, and sincerely asked us to give him a round of applause. Michael didn't like this one bit !

Sara Pascoe was up next who explained that due to her poor reviews at Edinburgh her confidence had been knocked and was not going to do material from that show, but she gave us some new material, a particular highlight being her graphic novel based around a "pornography" she has written. I can't remember all the details, but there was a lollipop lady, and ambulance driver, a dead child and a minotaur...

You have probably read about The Trap before on this blog, as they are 75% of Los Quattros Cvnts. I have always liked these guys, and I'm not a huge fan of sketch comedy, but their podcasts are always rambling, surreal and hilarious. The first sketch was an attempt to do hard hitting satire that was always interrupted by some rather cheesy show music. They went on to do a sketch involving Jeremy and Paul wearing fez's (always funny!). The Two Nevilles. This was a long routine that parodied old music hall duos and I wasn't really sure where it was going until Dan asked them how long they had been working together and they said it was so long they could do the routine backwards. Dan insisted they did. This was where the real comedy happened as this was a palindromic sketch which turned the charming if not especially hilarious sketch into quite an offensive routine that The Two Nevilles looked more and more shocked as the routine evolved in reverse. This was the best sketch The Two Ronnies never had (the clue was probably in the characters' names!) Brilliant stuff, backed up with the next sketch which comprised solely of the alphabet and nothing else. Very very funny guys.

Juggler, Mat Ricardo was up next.. I've seen clips on Youtube where rather than pulling a tablecloth off, leaving the crockery in place, Mat does the trick in reverse. However, this has to be my first apology of the blog as sometimes when you haven't made the most of the first interval, you have to make an interval of your own (I was dying for a wee, a fag and a drink) and I'm afraid on a long day when you have to pick an act to sacrifice, then I'm afraid it's often the juggler. Sorry Mat !

Interval #2 was good. Much better than the first one. It was so good I was late back and missed the start of Alex Horne and his Horne Section. This was yet another great act involving some audience interaction from Alex whilist his band played in the background. An improvised version of "One Wild Night" by Bon Jovi went down well even though I'm not sure if anyone has heard the song, or indeed if it exists. Great joke about 'Chat' magazine, with one audience member sayig her friend wrote a household tips column for it. Alex was confused why a French magazine about cats would have this! The set ended with a rather unexpected morris dance with a near disastrous end when all balance was lost.

I've never seen Pappy's before, but always heard good things. I was a little unsure whether the gloriously shambolic set they performed was scripted or whether that's how they always are, but got a lot of laughs and the build up to the three musketeers reading the football results was fantastic!

Chris Addison

What needs to be said about Chris Addison ? I've seen him a couple of times before, and he is ALWAYS on top form. He started with a bit of a microphone problem, and it seems that along the way he destroyed one. So a stuttering start, but he went on to be the funniest act of the day! Rants about the Daily Mail and a great line about being so non-sexist that he "actually married a woman. And in many ways, so did she"! Rants about Ugg boots, The Pope and The Daily Mail followed, as well as a true story about a woman being offended by the swearing in a golf club. She complaned to the committee and the rules were changed - so that women weren't allowed on the balcony! FIVE STARS !

I was so overcome by Chris that I needed more booze etc so apologies to Storytellers for missing almost their entire set. I'm sorry, although I got back in time to hear a story about joke theft committed by Stephen K Amos !

Dan Antolpolski was as awesome as you'd expect updating his classic "Hedgehog" joke to ask "Warthogs. Why can't they share the warts?" No narrative, just joke joke joke. He went on to explain the racial heritage of his children with pie charts, and confused the audience by questioning if you should use the word "hair" or "hairs". this went on for so long it definitely out "Mars Bar"ed Richard Herring! He talked about his friendship at school with George Osborne (a Stewart Lee style exaggeration?) and his suspicion that he likes retarded porn. His set included another of the best lines of the day: "I can't help myself. Like Stephen Hawking at a buffet" He ended the set with a rap about his laser. That isn't as scary as it sounds!

Star of "Gutted", Colin Hoult was next. He played an army veteran (Andy Parker) who promised us he would not be doing any of that "poofy stuff". He told us about his money making schemes including drawing TMNTs*. He has also written a screenplay based around Hostel where he has a "poofy bloke" and a "fit bird" being killed horrifically by Mr Giggles, finally being defeated by an "army bloke" This is the second time I've seen him play this guy, and would love to see more of his work. Great stuff.

*TMNTs - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Paul Sinha sets out his stall from the beginning explaining he is gay, Indian, and ex-doctor and a quizzer. very funny guy who talked about his appearance on radio (never telly, always radio) to debate with the deputy leader of the BNP. He then went on to speculate which member of Pappy's he would do first !

Tony Law

Tony Law came on after the interval and bamboozled everyone with his unusual thoughts. I've seen Tony a few times and always throws in plenty new material and he seems to freeflow ideas as they occur to him like a mroe surreal Eddie Izzard in cowboy boots. After a couple of minutes everyone was going with him! His discussion on panda prostitution and his workshop on comedy instructing people to use animal sounds and revolutions to make comedy gold,

More music next from Tara Flynn who performed 3 songs from her Big Noise show that I already blogged about here. I was very happy to hear "The Fog From The Film The Fog" as well as her song about Irish sexuality containing my favourite lyric of the evening "You custard bastard. I'm your custard whore"

Have you noticed that each act is getting less and less written about them as this blog goes on? Sorry but my fingers are tired, the blog is too long and my memory is fading...

Sean Goldsworthy (aka Paul Litchfield)

The legendary Sean Goldsworthy (Paul Litchfield from The Trap) delivered some extremely arousing erotic poetry. With lines such as "Her breasts looked right back at him" and "Her ass was toned like paperweights filled with pictures of other women's asses" I would imagine everyone, even all the women, in the audience sported stiffies.

Jim Bob

Carter USM's Jim Bob, (yet another star of Gutted) came on to perform a few songs for us including the Carter classic "The Only Living Boy In New Cross". It was hard to concentrate with Michael Legge dancing out of the corner of my eye! This is yet another performer I will definitely be seeing again.

Hitch and Legge have a lovely snog

The Penny Dreadfuls were soon on to complete the show and again, like the poor Mat Ricardo I had to sacrifice them for more booze, fags and weeing. Sorry about that again... Michael brought the gig to a close thanking all the acts for performing only to be trumped by his lovely wife Muki shouting Michael's name which resulted in a standing ovation which, again, Michael didn't like at all, prompting him to bolt from the stage straight to the bar.

Sincerely though, a great job by Michael for organising this, and looking forward to next year's already. After the gig, Hitch and I went to The Rocket on Euston Road and were soon joined by Woolhouse. A more perfect ending to the night I couldn't imagine.

Then Hitch threw up in a bin.

Big Noise and Big Fun*

I wasn't remotely surprised when Jason sat down beside me and jumped up uncomfortably before removing a chicken and a duck from his back pocket before placing them triumphantly on the table.

Anyway it was nice of Tara Flynn to practise her show in Edinburgh for a month before the big event back at The Phoenix. As usual it was also great to see some old Twitter types such as Neal, Rob, Vicky and Jason

Now, I know Tara mainly through the London Comedy Improv. You may know her through that too. Or perhaps you've seen her on Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle or the Paul Merton series, "Thank God You're here". Or indeed the lady in "Doctors" a few months ago. (I missed this performance sadly). Or indeed as we were reminded later, "The woman from the Utterly Butterly advert.

Opening tonight was London Comedy Improv's tallest and Irishest member Brendan Dempsey. I had been unaware all this time that Brendan still did stand up (I was obviously ill-informed by Neal earlier) and thought he mainly did comedy acting and the improv, but I'm so glad he does. Brendan has a very gentle calming voice and I lazily compared him to Tara afterwards to Ardal O'Hanlon before she pulled a funny face and told me that it's probably because he's Irish. Anyway the point is (and I'll come back to this later) sometimes the support acts take you by surprise and you can find a whole new realm of comedy to follow.

Tara's show (Big Noise) is a collection of comedy songs with no particular narrative. No message. No story. Now I have always been suspicious of musical comedy. Sorry, but I just don't get the whole "Beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly" stuff.

She opened with a tribute to the "Quirky Ones" (Lily Allen et al) followed by a number of other songs about topics as diverse as Weetabix (with the inexplicable dry bit in the middle) as well as a fantastic 80s Hazel O'Connor style track involving science and nuclear war.

The closing song was an epic German/Irish electronic track about a "custard bastard" (she's the custard whore.) This is a phrase I shall attempt to use in conversation a lot more than I used to. Tara also gave me a new religion which I have added to my Facebook page (non-practising Buddhist) which has somehow tickled me and sounds better than the rather po-faced "atheist".  This is a show I really hope Tara can develop, perhaps eventually involving a live band.

You can see a clip of Tara, Brendan and others singing an improvised song (at London Comedy Improv obviously) here

I also went to see Catie Wilkins for the second time in a week. Now this was a spur of the moment decision and I had been "out" most of the afternoon so my memory isn't all that good ! So forgive me if this ends up rather short.

Opening was Lou Sanders.  I always get nervous seeing comedians I've known about and followed on Twitter etc for the first time. I always really want to like them, and it often isn't the case. But Lou was hilarious ! (Thus linking back to the support act thing I mentioned earlier.) Also a very humble lady. After mentioning to Lou on twitter that I had enjoyed her set, she replied:

"@AndyMcH ahhh thank you! It's true, I am cocking awesome. X"

It's good to have that confidence ! I will be seeing her again. (not like that!)


Catie is a relative newcomer to comedy and "Inheritance Tax" was her first hour long show. I remember seeing her do a short set around a year ago opening for Richard Herring at Fat Tuesday and howling when she told her AIDS joke. She was advised not to perform this routine in Brighton as gay people may be offended, but that's utter rubbish.


Catie seems a little nervous on stage, but this doesn't detract from how funny she is. If anything it makes her more endearing. She explains that the show isn't about inheritance tax or fiscal affairs but about comparing herself to her parents to see if she is turning into them. I would probably have chosen a different title, as if I didn't know who she was I may not have gone to see a show with that title, but that's neither here nor there.

Highlights include her dad's Christmas circulars to her whole extended family where her mother has been very ill but he has gone off to the skiing holiday by himself anyway and explaining mum's illness in all its gory detail whilst explaining how much he enjoyed his holiday, as well as her mum's fantastic catchphrase - "How dare you come here and say that" - another phrase I will attempt to use more often.

Conscious of how drunk I was, I made my goodbyes as brief as possible as I otherwise would have turned into an annoying pest (again) and headed back to Camden Town and finally home.


Tara Flynn, Brendan Dempsey, Catie Wilkins, and Lou Sanders - see them when you get a chance !!



* Yes I know this is mainly a blog about Tara and Catie and I know that Catie is kown as "Show Pony" in her podcast she does with Lou "Big Fun" Sanders, but "Big Noise & Show Pony" would have been a weird title. Confusing at best. If you have a problem with this, please feel free to leave a comment, or email me. Send me a message on Twitter if you like. But don't just moan about it. It's only a title. What's your problem? To be honest I find your attitude rather poor. Insulting even. I don't need to do this. I could have just called it "Catie Wilkins & Tara Flynn", but that's just two people's names, and would it have drawn you in as much as "Big Noise & Big Fun"? Now I wish I hadn't criticised the title of Catie's show. I know how it feels now. Catie, I'm sorry. But these people just... AARGH. God they wind me up. I shouldn't let it get to me, but you should see what people are sending me. Then you'd understand. In fact don't even mention it to me any more. Not interested. Now seeing as Ewen MacIntosh has put his personal number up on Twitter send a text to him instead. I'm just don't care about your opinions. What????

How dare you come here and say that you custard bastard.