Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 22nd April 2016

First Screaming Blue Murder for us for a few weeks and it also happened to be a birthday celebration! So when Dan Evans called out if anyone was celebrating anything I cried out an excitable “Yes!” to which he replied “oh not you…” It’s lovely to be a valued member of the audience. Actually, there were some other much more…vociferous people there who were also celebrating. My moment in the spotlight passed quickly.

Dan had plenty to contend with, with a front row half stocked with over-enthusiastic birthday partyers, and half with a party of police constables. You had to feel sorry for P.C. Tom, sat in the front row, right in the middle, and, as everyone agreed, thoroughly gorgeous looking. Every act commented on how he was a stunner. One of them even made him stand up and accept the (maybe jealous) plaudits of the crowd. He took it like a man – in other words he didn’t complain and he giggled a lot with his mate.

Our first act was bluff Northerner Chris Washington. He was new to us and, I must say, we really enjoyed his act. He took it all at a nice confident pace, and with bags of very funny material, you never doubted you were going to be in for a fun half hour. Included in his routine was an excellently bizarre weapons amnesty (in honour of the police guests I think), how men and women differ when they answer the door to the postie when they’ve just got out of bed, and the economics of dog ownership. I particularly enjoyed his mate’s CV – I’m presuming it’s not genuine but if it is, that’s terrific – and a brilliant last gag that mixes Lego with legover. An excellent start.

Our second act was Amy Howerska, whom we have seen before but as part of the hosting team of Spank! on our first visit to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014. Again, extremely funny, she’s one of those comedians whose act just flies by in a whoosh of sex jokes and brilliant observations and it’s hard to pin down whether she dwelt for very long on any particular subject. She did have some great material about not being emotional because she comes from a military family, has a wide range of excellent accents, including her Eastern European bikini wax lady, and she introduced me to the concept of Penis Braille. (Not on a one-to-one basis, I should add). Bright, funny; a little challenging from time to time but all to the good.

In a change to the advertised programme, our final act was Robert White, whom we have seen three times before. He’s always been brilliant in the past, and he was brilliant again. Mixing being gay with Aspergers’, chucking in a keyboard and a penchant for comedy songs, scouring the front row for straight guys to embarrass, what could go wrong? He has one of the fastest-thinking brains imaginable, so can seemingly create brand new, person-specific comedy material at the drop of a pair of pants. Just superb.