Trap X

"Scientists estimate the 10th planet in the solar system will be called Bikini". A collection of facts like these, alongside some jaunty music started the Trap's new show

It's been a long month. All my favourite comedians seem to have gigs in Edinburgh, all booked at the same time which seems a bit weird. So, I headed to Camden where all the cool kids are hanging out to see The Trap. It was also a good chance to meet comedy twitter people such as William Tennant and Hitch, as well as regular comedy mates, Neal and Richard.

I saw The Trap last year doing Bad Musical and you have probably seen me write about them quite a bit as they are 75% of Los Quattros Cvnts. They are comprised of 2 must-follow tweeters, Paul Litchfield and Jeremy Limb, along with just as funny, but less tweety Dan Mersh.

They times this gig rather badly as it clashes with the final of "Show Me The Funny" which is an ITV comedy talent series that started terribly, but has got better as it has gone along. Anyway my funny is on Tiff, but will I manage to avoid the result before I get home?* Anyway that concludes my little intro. I guess i should write the rest after I've seen the show. (* avoided the result, but Pat Monaghan deservedly won)

The Trap did point out that the title of their show is not because it contains any pornography, but that X was the Roman numeral for 10, representing their 10 years together. However Camden council had insisted that some should be included. So we had a saucy sound effect to look forward to.

Starting with their first ever gig, where they were so nervous they were all going to the toilet, being sick and having heart attacks, we worked out way through The Trap's alternative history.

We moved on to a job interview sketch, where the candidate had applied to be a job interviewer, leading to an extremely confusing conversation about 4 levels deep, which Dan and Jeremy got through perfectly. Although there are 3 of them, this sketch shows perfectly why I see The Trap as the new Two Ronnies.

I really enjoyed a sketch by 2 new fathers who decided they didn't want to mollycoddle their babies led to a rather extreme and shocking conclusion.

We had some failed audience interaction with the most famous man in the world, and also some excellent interaction between Paul and William, both encased in a box for a reprise of Paul's one man show.

The promise of the stupidest song in the world certainly didn't disappoint. Jeremy performed "What A Wonderful World" very straight with the baffling addition of "Crème. Crème. Crème. Crème Egg"

At the end, the boys asked for various audience members to be in a sketch with them, reprising all the characters that were in the show which made for quite a unique way to finish.

We ended up in the beer garden chatting with Paul who was entertaining as always, and discussed the fantastic new video format "Diamond DVD". - that will only make sense if you were sitting round the table. To be honest, I've forgotten the entire context. But boy, did we laugh.

We headed on to our tube train and Hitch agreed to come with me to Angel where we found almost every pub closed. Luckily, The Old Queens Head was open, where I impressed Hitch by telling him it was where Herring's Mars Bar routine was performed. He didn't look impressed but I could tell he was, then ending the evening at The Mucky Pup. At some point he must have pushed me over as I have woken up with a massive head bump. Obviously it would be Hitch's fault and not mine. You have another three chances to see them. Please make sure you do.

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.

The Trap - Bad Musical

I hate Edinburgh Fringe.

Mainly because I haven't been and all the fun people abandon me for a month leaving my blog empty and my life just a shell.

However there was the smaller and less known Camden Fringe just a short bus ride away and I decided to see "Bad Musical" by The Trap.

The Trap consist of Jeremy Limb, Paul Litchfield and Dan Mersh and release their own free "Sodcast" every week or two on iTunes. t's an hour long barrage of non-sequiturs, amusing voices and odd logic and if you're a fan of Collings & Herrin or Precious Little then it's well worth a listen. I mainly know The Trap as being 3/4 of Los Quattros Cvnts who perform at The Phoenix on the first Wednesday of the month (shows start again in October after a short break)

Bad Musical was at The Etcetera theatre, which is a small rather warm room above The Oxford Arms in Camden. I got there about 45 minutes before show time and waited for @Neal55 to arrive. It was hot and noisy in the main bar so I decided to wait outside. I said a brief hi to Paul but took a seat in the corner as I don't really like to disturb performers before their show (afterwards is a different matter!)

It didn't look good. I seemed to be surrounded by a group of proper lads in pink T-shirts bearing the words "Rugby Addict", being rather raucous and singing songs about pissing in the sink. At first I thought it could be an impromptu satirical Camden Fringe performance, but I soon realised they were just annoying twats.

We took our seats and the show began. An official voice informed us that the show was written as a 3 hour piece but had to be truncated. Every so often as the show progressed we were informed that the next long chunk of the musical had been removed, which negated the need for any important plot and allowed the characters to get out of whatever hole they had dug themselves into. We were also told that Lloyd Webber had threatened legal action and the song had to be changed.

Starting with "Life Is A Musical", The Trap tried to reference as many musical as possible with increasingly contrived lyrics. Yes, this was living up to its name (in a good way!)

"When you come back from Vietnam and you miss Saigon - that's a musical"
"When you steal clothes from Derek Acorah's line - that's a musical"
"You're a Chicken Kiev eater - that's a musical"

Prizes are available if you can guess the musicals above..

The plot rotates round Dan Mersh's character (Johnny Everyman) growing up in a small town and eventually leaving for London, becoming a banker, causing the melt down of the economic system, becoming homeless, and ending up in space. All the other characters are played by Paul and Jeremy and the array of voices they use is pretty impressive (though regular listeners to the Sodcasts will be used to this).

I just wish I had more reference points for these songs. A great Rocky Horror show style song and the aforementioned Lloyd Webber song with every 8th note painfully changed were highlights for me, as well as the many (well-rehearsed) "technical problems".

As usual for a show I'm enjoying, it finished far too quickly and we retreated downstairs to the beer garden. Luckily the pink rugby cunts had gone. Neal and I spent some time chatting with Paul (mainly about Doctor Who) and as often is the case with Paul, he utterly bamboozled and confused me with his many shifts in characters and voices. And this is after the show! Sometimes an after show chat with The Trap can be as entertaining as the show itself. They are a lovely collection of nelly sweariness.

I do hope the team play some more dates soon. Now the other Cvnt (Michael Legge) has also become a muscial star at Edinburgh with "Gutted" I imagine the next LQC could be quite a camp affair!