Review – The Comedy Crate Weekender, Edinburgh Previews and Works in Progress, Northampton, 20th and 21st July 2024

Posted on July 22, 2024 by therealchrisparkle

A veritable cornucopia of comedic talent descended on Northampton last weekend to take part in this year’s Comedy Crate Weekender, two days of fun and frolics where comedians who are honing their Edinburgh shows to perfection come and try them out on the willing guinea pigs of Northampton. Three venues, twenty-six (twenty-seven actually, there was one double act) performers, and enough laughter to make even Greyfriars Bobby satisfy his FOMO by leaving his post and sniffing it out. It’s all down to the precision engineering planning and organisation of those nice people at the Comedy Crate, to whom we offer three cheers!

The structure of the weekend means you can make it very much your own adventure. With two or three shows on at the same time, you can create your own comedy recipe for each day. I’d like to be able to say we chose our schedule with meticulous research – that would not, strictly speaking, be true. But this is what we saw – and how we reacted!

Saturday 20 July:

Michael Odewale (The Black Prince)

We’d not seen Michael Odewale before, although I knew the name. He’s a very likeable presence on stage, quite relaxed and confiding, and he started off with some very relatable and recognisable material about his driving instructor being a conspiracy theorist; I think that was especially funny as it’s a completely believable concept! There’s a great reason why he failed his Hill Stop and Start, and he has an excellent way of telling old white ladies and old black ladies apart. His show frequently returns to a central thread about just trying to be a better person. He will be the first to agree that it still needs a lot of weeding and shaping, but once it’s there I’m sure it will be a great hour. His Edinburgh show, Michael Odewale: Of Mike and Men, is on every day at 14:50 from 30 July – 12 August at Monkey Barrel Comedy at The Hive.

Olga Koch (The Charles Bradlaugh)

Olga Koch is another name of whom I had heard Good Things but had not yet seen for myself. Whereas Mr Odewale gently took us through his material, Ms Koch dives straight in, all guns blazing, with a fiery, spirited attacking style full of vigour and kapow. Born in Russia, university-educated in New York City, and for the last ten years a resident of the UK, Olga Koch is clearly a citizen of the world but very much shaped by those unusual Russian/American formative years. She wants us to know that she is rich; she’d like to be able to tell us where the money came from, but much of that is surmise – however, her father apparently was one of six or seven men who basically took control of Russia’s oil industry once the Iron Curtain was down. Nothing illegal, he assures us. Ms Koch has a fast and funny style, hardly pausing for breath as she illustrates her life story with observations on privilege, wealth, and learning from other countries. This is also work-in-progress, but there’s not that much left for her to tweak, and her Edinburgh show Olga Koch Comes From Money is going to go down a storm. It’s on every day from 30 July to 25 August at 17:40 at Monkey Barrel Comedy 3.

Andrew Bird (The Charles Bradlaugh)

Local lad Andrew Bird (what he doesn’t know about Towcester isn’t worth knowing) returns to the County Town with a very polished and hilarious show delivered with his usual cheeky, knowing, down-to-earth style. Its central thread is about the nature of comedy and how and why we appreciate it – including plenty of local variations, which enables him to give us some comedy nuggets about his stage appearances in Belfast, Liverpool, and Birmingham. He’s not afraid to come close to some tricky subjects – race, religion and suchlike, but handles them with such aplomb that it’s impossible to be offended. There are also lots of stories about his nine year old, and life with a Slovakian wife (or is it Slovenian, he can never remember). Full of drive and immensely likeable, he hasn’t got an Edinburgh show coming up, but he will be taking this new material (and hopefully some other, as yet, unwritten stuff) on tour later in the year. Just don’t call him Andy!

Angela Barnes (The Charles Bradlaugh)

Angela Barnes prefaced her show with a warning that, not only was this a Work in Progress, it’s a Work in Progress for a show for 2025! So the fact that there is clearly a long way to go before the comedy material she shared can be neatly dovetailed into a properly structured show, she does at least have plenty of time to achieve it. That said, she is taking her Angela Barnes is Getting Worked Up (WIP) show to Edinburgh this year. A hugely funny and always reliable performer, Ms Barnes gave us some unfamiliar topics of discussion; predominantly, the fact that she suffers from synaesthesia, the condition where your sensory perceptions get muddled up – which of course she uses for comic gain. There are also entertaining anecdotes about performing to a nudist group, and taking part in the TV programme World’s Most Dangerous Roads with Rhod Gilbert. Angela Barnes is a naturally funny person with terrific style and presence, and once this material has been properly “worked up” this will be a brilliant show. Meanwhile, Angela Barnes is Getting Worked Up (WIP) is on every day from 12 to 25 August at Assembly George Square Studios at 18:15.

Maisie Adam (The Charles Bradlaugh)

Of course, we knew who Maisie Adam is – but confession time, we have never seen her perform before, neither live nor on TV. So we had no idea quite what a treat was in store. She is one of those gifted comedians who appears to need to put no effort in whatsoever to deliver you a brilliant hour of comedy, because she makes it look so easy (which we know it certainly isn’t!) A lovely, honest storytelling style leads you to believe absolutely everything she says, which, in this work in progress show, included avoiding turning up to a gig in Halifax wearing a Leeds United strip (a definite no-no, I understand), what happened on her hen night, explaining how she was happily married to a man to a club full of lesbians, and the tactical error she made before going on the TV programme The Wheel. A masterclass in confident, fluid delivery and a bundle of truly hilarious material to enjoy too. Maisie Adam is not preparing for an Edinburgh Fringe show but has a UK tour, Appraisal, starting in September, finishing in November.

Sunday 21 July:

Sophie Duker (The Black Prince)

A fairly last-minute replacement for Darren Harriott who was unwell, Sophie Duker brought her Work in Progress show to the Black Prince; and, although she was using notes, it struck me that the show was a good 90% in place. Ms Duker is new to us, but she has a strong stage persona, a confident delivery and a wonderfully playful use of language. However, the content of her show didn’t appeal to us at all, I’m afraid. It came across as misandrist, describing all men as toxic, saying that they shouldn’t live over the age of 35. I know I’m sure this is not her genuine belief (I think) – and, of course, it is comedy – but it nevertheless alienated the men in our party and Mrs Chrisparkle found her content – the whole notion of delusion or delulu – so uninteresting due to sheer repetition that she decided to have a short nap. I suspect we were completely the wrong demographic for her show. I guess you either love her – or you don’t! Huge kudos to second-row Nick, by the way, who played the role of her missing Daddy superbly. Her show But Daddy I Love Her is on at 19:00 in the Pleasance Courtyard every day from 31 July to 25 August except the 14^th.

Brennan Reece (The Black Prince)

We’ve seen Mr Reece a couple of times before and he never fails to impress with his likeable cheekiness and impish sense of humour. The basis of his latest show is that he was signed up to become the new face of CBBC, which is a great gig to get – guaranteed work for a year – but just before he started the job, he was sacked – over an allegedly offensive joke in a tweet (allegedly) – and they wouldn’t tell him what it was. Being Mr Reece he goes all around the houses with a maze of funny observations and tangential sideswipes, and it was a very enjoyable hour of comedy. Very much still a work in progress – and I would say he possibly has to get his skates on to get it ship-shape before Edinburgh opening night. But he has such a winning personality that you sense he could get away with virtually anything on stage – and probably off it too. Brennan Reece: Me Me Me is on every day at PBH’s Free Fringe at the Liquid Room Annexe/Warehouse from 3 to 25 August except the 13^th.

John Robertson (The Black Prince)

I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Mr Robertson – and what we got was a whirlwind of anarchy that is possibly unique in the world of comedy. Armed with an electric ukelele (what deranged mentality thought of that?), a razor-sharp brain and a truly inventive attacking style that meant that no one was safe in the room, no matter where you sat, Mr Robertson just spends the whole show riffing off the audience in all kinds of unexpected and unpredictable directions. For about the first five minutes I was thinking oh no this was a terrible mistake, but after you start tuning into his sense of humour you appreciate the high energy 100% hilarious show it is. It’s notable that, for all the danger that he radiates as he careers around the stage and the audience, none of his interaction with the crowd is ever cruel; it’s perfectly pitched. In fact, if you get picked on by Mr R – it helps; I was identified as the rich retired man of the audience and it was quite a flattering role to have been given. He has one particularly silly song – The Kitekat Blues – that genuinely had me in hysterics. Never come across him before – but Goodness Me what a force of comedy he is! This was a work in progress for his Human Hurricane show in Edinburgh – every day at 20:20 at the Laughing Horse at the Counting House from 1 to 25 August except 9^th; he is also performing in his Dark Room show every day from 31 July to 25 August at the Gilded Balloon Patter House at 22:00. They don’t call him The Human Hurricane for nothing.

Steen Raskopoulos (The Black Prince)

Another new name to us, Steen Raskopoulos comes with lots of success in his native Australia, so I was hopeful of a strong performance. He clued us in at the beginning that his shows are not regular comedy stand-up type routines, but a more involved series of sketches, improvisations and other elements of audience participation. And, to be fair, before he started, he established whether there was anyone who didn’t want to be approached to become part of the show – and we all stayed silent, as we wondered what on earth he was going to do to us. His new show, Friendly Stranger, takes as its core thread the kind of thing that most of us would do to help a stranger, if they were in need. And we all pretty much confirmed that, as nice people, on the whole, we’d do what we could. What follows is a complicated sequence of sketches, ideas, and interactions that together form a very clever overall piece. Now, of course, this is a work in progress, and one must always make allowances for that. However, and I’m afraid this is a big however; it just wasn’t very funny. Many of the sketches didn’t land – the punchlines and pay-offs fell short; and the end scene, which is like the physical version of one massive callback, concludes the show in a messy, unravelled and scruffy way. I can’t help but think that in Edinburgh that particular ending is going to be very tricky. I really wanted to like this more because Mr Raskopoulos is clearly the friendliest and most easy-going of chaps, and you’d love to go for a pint with him afterwards; but the show itself left us feeling very shortchanged. Friendly Stranger plays at the Pleasance Courtyard every day at 16:50 from 31 July to 25 August except the 12^th.

Amy Gledhill (The Charles Bradlaugh)

The final hour of comedy at this year’s Weekender was spent in the company of Amy Gledhill, a riotously funny lady who doesn’t take herself remotely seriously but also shows a delicate vulnerability beneath the hilarious surface. Her show, Make Me Look Fit on the Poster – brilliant title, by the way – is an all-encompassing look at her life and loves (so far), and the scrapes that she sometimes gets herself into in the pursuit of a man. There is a wonderfully funny sequence about her hapless visit to a Go Ape venue which ends in calamity but has you shaking with laughter. Ms G has a brilliant aptitude for physical comedy, so that when she recounts a scene where she’s dangling from a harness a few feet from the ground, she gently spins around like a giant Christmas bauble, to give the visual effect of what she might have looked like – and it’s so believable! There’s another story where she tells about receiving an automatic massage and how it jolts her in the back – and the physical portrayal of this scene just had me collapsing with laughter. But there’s also a serious side to the show, where she tells of an assault she experienced on a train; downplayed, ridiculous, self-deprecating but very real. Amy Gledhill is hugely likeable on stage and radiates funniness from every pore. And I’m going to insist on butter on my chips in future. Make Me Look Fit on the Poster is on every day at Monkey Barrel Comedy 1 at 18:10 from 13 to 25 August.

And that, gentle reader, sums up our Comedy Crate Weekend! I hope if you were there that this reminds you of some brilliant laughs, and if you weren’t – where were you? You’d better be there next year!

Review – Andrew Bird, Ha Ha Time, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 20th April 2019

Posted on April 24, 2019 by therealchrisparkle

This was to be the last date in Andrew Bird’s first ever (I can’t believe it was his first ever) national tour, and appropriately enough, for a Northamptonshire lad, he returned to his spiritual home at the R&D. We’d seen Mr Bird do his stuff at Screaming Blue Murders in the past when he entertained us hugely with his twenty-minute sets. But could he sustain an entire evening on his own? By Jiminy he could!

Andrew Bird is a no-gimmick comedian; what you see is what you get. He doesn’t pick on the front rows, because, as he says, you never know what kind of mess you’re going to get into (so sitting on the front row, like we did, is safe!) He’s an immensely likeable chap; the kind you’d really want to spend time down the pub with. His delivery is sure, authoritative, confident and pacey, but never aggressive. And his material is full of the everyday observations that we all have about how ridiculous life is, but could never put into words ourselves. His turns of phrase are immaculate, as is his timing for the killer lines. And there is a warmth in his delivery that reassures you that all the teasing comes from a kind place – unsurprisingly, perhaps, considering how much of his material stems from his domestic bliss with his Slovakian wife and two incredibly difficult children.

Among his gems, we learned how so many of the problems that face women are named after men; how sometimes you can be relieved to be in the company of Millwall supporters; the problems of having a cream coloured settee with infants around; when you should, and shouldn’t, give someone a birthday card; and what you should really be thinking about when you give a sperm sample. I also loved his (100% accurate) portrayal of how posh people treat their friends in comparison with working class people. The beauty of his comedy is its recognisability; the show is two hours of pure truth, bundled together in a fantastically funny package.

When the time came to wrap up, I couldn’t believe the evening had flown by so quickly. Mrs Chrisparkle and I were laughing about it all the way home, and, indeed, a few days later, we’re still quoting our favourite bits. This is a performer for whom surely greatness awaits – if not, there’s no justice in this world. If you get the chance to see him in action, don’t hesitate!

P. S. As this was the end of his tour, he was having the show properly and professionally videod and edited for future audiences to see what they missed. We noted there was a tiny wee camera at the foot of the stage looking directly out at the crowd – and, from what we could gather, aimed firmly in our faces. Apologies in advance if we ruined the video!!!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 16th May 2014

Posted on May 19, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

It’s always sad when we reach the final Screaming Blue Murder of the season, but at least the people of Northampton gave it a good send-off with another packed house last Friday night. Our MC for this show was Martin Coyote, who we’ve seen before doing his usual act but not as compere. He was superb – lightly keeping everyone well behaved for the acts but also sharing some stonking good material with us. He’s got a great stage persona – wry and rather cynical but still upbeat and positive. He kept the show going superbly and had the majority of the best lines of the night.

Our first act was new to us, Javier Jarquin. He’s an interesting blend of Chinese and Latino all wrapped up in a Kiwi accent. He comes over as very likeable, with some really excellent material, including how a newcomer to a country can be confused by the shop names, the (highly significant) differences between “it” and “that”, how furnishing a bed changes when you get a girlfriend, and how a pavlova can pale into insignificance when talking to a Croatian. He had both Mrs Chrisparkle and me in hysterics when he equated asking his girlfriend how her day was to accidentally hitting “Print All” on the computer. Great delivery, and really funny. He’s a magician too – would be good to see him do some magic another time!

Our second act was Helen Arney, also new to us, and, really unfortunately, it all went a bit Pete Tong. Her act is based on her persona of being a science nerd, and doing comedy songs that reflect that. To be honest, I didn’t think she looked or acted particularly nerdy so that persona didn’t convince me. She seemed nervous and somewhat shouty, and rushed the early parts of the act a bit, and I think got put off when the laughs didn’t come. She then forgot her lines in her first comedy song, lost even more confidence, and at that point we lost confidence in her. Her final song, about having a lover in a coma, was extremely dark and savage and would probably have worked if we’d kept faith in her act – but I’m afraid we hadn’t, so it didn’t. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Last act was someone we had seen before, and remembered as being brilliant, local lad Andrew Bird. He was runner-up in the 2012 Chrisparkle Awards for best Screaming Blue Stand-up, beaten only by the fantastic Mr Paul Sinha. Andrew Bird’s attack and confidence are just astounding, because they are so perfectly pitched. He has just the right level of enthusiasm for you to fully engage in the pictures of domestic or parental harmony he is painting, with wonderful observations that capture true comedy moments. We loved his material about marketing a lavender scented child’s bath lotion, to calm bath time for a two-year-old into a chilled experience – and the contrast with the bottle of Matey that we all had when we were kids that bleached everything in sight. So much brilliant material, and the audience absolutely loved him.

And that is indeed it, until the next season starts again on 12th September. Get it in your diary now!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground, Derngate, Northampton, 20th January 2012

Posted on January 23, 2012 by therealchrisparkle

A funny thing happened at the Screaming Blue Murder last Friday night, which is no less than you would expect with a great compere, three excellent acts and two alcohol-fuelled intervals. We’ve not been able to attend the last couple of shows so it was with some surprise that Dan Evans, compering, said he was still on the search for “the man who has been writing about him on the internet”. Mrs Chrisparkle’s penny dropped as she shuddered and whispered “keep quiet!” “So where is this Chris Sparkle?” Dan continued. It was The Moment of Outing. “It’s me!” came my voice from the third row. “You? At last I meet my nemesis!” shrieked Dan as his body contorted in a combination of victory and agony. Aaargh, I thought, this could be a very bumpy ride. But there’s no free speech without responsibility, so I faced it head on. I admit, I have been guilty of whingeing about Dan’s repeating the same jokes time and again in this blog, but then not quite as much as Dan is guilty of the afore-mentioned repeatings.

But actually Dan turned this very much to his advantage and was able to frame the compering of the show around my impertinent requirement for fresh material, which very nicely took the mick out of both of us. There was a great moment during one of his sessions when a lady from the front row suggested he did his joke about Luton and the book. A two-pronged attack! In response to which he did a great routine about why doing that joke would not work – and it was very funny. Maybe that should be a regular feature when Dan is compering in future – a request slot? Someone could ask for their favourite Old-Tyme Dan joke. Might go down a storm. As a peace-offering, at the end he gave me a copy of his book, which was very kind. But I had to return it after the show as I already bought a copy over a year ago.

Anyway, to the acts, and they were really great this week. First was Colin Owens, who had very funny insights into bad sex experiences and a nice line in combining this with his progression to baldness; very bright and inclusive, perhaps with just slightly too long a pause between some of his deliveries that made me think “oh no, please don’t lose it, it’s going really well”; but he didn’t, and it did. I loved his observations about having a Bar Mitzvah at Madame Tussauds.

Second was Susan Murray, who we had seen here before doing a lot of accent-based gags, but who did largely new material (take note!) and handled a heckler very amusingly. Mrs C appreciated her observation that you only have a landline so your mother can ring it. Good stuff, and she kept the act moving really well.

Headline act was local lad Andrew Bird. What a discovery! I don’t think any of the comics who have entertained us over the three years we’ve been coming to Screaming Blue Murder have achieved such gold-standard delivery. His timing was immaculate, pacey and flowing but never rushed, giving just the right window to appreciate the now before moving on to the next; his self-confidence meant you never had a moment’s concern for how he would structure the act although this didn’t mean he was in any way big-headed but instead was immensely likeable; and you really identified with him in the comic situations he described, because his observations were so spot-on. Mrs C and I had a prolonged good laugh walking home as we remembered his account of putting the baby in the dishwasher. It’ll have to be a very special performance that snatches this year’s Chrisparkle award from Mr Bird.

So a great night, with a huge and appreciative crowd, slightly weird for me with my unexpected role in the evening’s entertainment, but we’re really looking forward to the next one!