Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 19th November 2021

Posted on November 22, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

It’s odd how the same format of three fabulous acts, two wonderful intervals and one marvellous compere can create a different vibe from show to show. There was something odd and ill at ease about October’s Screaming Blue Murder, but last Friday’s show was a crackeroony of a night. Host Dan Evans was on fine form indeed with his welcomes and entr’actes, mining the comedy out of the front rows, including Texaco Josh who was 29 but looked 13, Oundle Will who was 17 and looked 17, and Farmer Alice who, according to Dan, had to get up at 5am every day just to fill out all the refund forms, thus receiving the biggest laugh of the night.

An innovative line-up featured two female comics and one male, which may be an indication of some progress where it comes to equality in comedy. We’d seen all the acts before, some more recently than others, and it’s interesting to see how they mixed and matched the same material we’ve seen before but to different effect.

First up was Juliet Meyers, whom I was expecting to use the C word within the first couple of minutes as she always does, but this time she didn’t – maybe she thought we were posher than we were. It wasn’t until she made a disparaging remark about our beloved Prime Minister, at which point Front Row Tom got up in a magnificent display of what appeared to be disgust which I think took us all slightly aback, only to get to the door to turn around and say by the way I agree, Boris Johnson is a massive c*nt (I may be paraphrasing). After that we were all relieved and Ms Meyers had the green light to use the C word as much as she wanted, and then everything fell nicely into place. Front Row Tom returned (he’d only nipped out to the loo), and Juliet got on with some great material about dogs’ unconditional love, Brexit in the canine world, and why men have become more tender in the bedroom. Great stuff.

Next up was James Sherwood, who reminds me of what David Mitchell would look like if he was just relaxing down the pub. He has a great interaction with the audience, very wry and dry, gently laconic and I really enjoyed his material regarding sex versus drugs and the pros and cons of both. He split up his act with a few musical jokes at the keyboard, which are his trademark, but for some reason they didn’t quite hit home in the way they have in the past. Nevertheless a good fun set.

Our headline act was someone we’ve seen twice already this year, Jenny Collier, and I feared that listening to the same material again so soon after hearing it before would be a little disappointing. Not a bit of it. Ms Collier has honed this routine to perfection, working on the just the right words and intonations to make it as funny as possible – and she went down a complete storm. She is one of those comics who plays beautifully on her rather sweet and innocent appearance and contrasts it with the unexpected power of her material; a posh versus filthy balance, which she gauges perfectly. She uses her experience working in the NHS to great effect; has a great joke about a gag reflex; tells us about all the new Welsh words she learned this year; and ends up with a riotous routine about providing a stool sample. Left us all wanting a lot more – fabulous work.

That was the last Screaming Blue Murder for 2021, but, if we have unearnéd luck, we’ll all be back in January. See you there!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 28th April 2017

Posted on May 2, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

If it feels like it was only last week that they had the last Screaming Blue Murder – you’re right! We hadn’t been able to get to one for ages and then along they all come like the proverbial No. 10 bus. However, this week Dan Evans was back in the hosting saddle, so I knew I was going to be safe unlike last week….! At Friday’s show, Dan’s challenges were provided by (as is often the case) members of the police force in the front row, an ebullient and uninhibited musician chap wearing a hat (it wasn’t raining, indoors or out) and an intimidatingly handsome man who sized golf clubs for a living. I guess someone must. Dan, as ever, on top form, rose to all these challenges and surpassed them.

Our first act, and one we’ve seen no fewer than four times before at previous Screaming Blues, was Susan Murray. Always great value, and with an enjoyable mix of old and new stuff, she’s absolutely ace at creating really funny material out of her excellent range of regional accents – I particularly loved the Brummy skiing idea. She’s maturing up now, with excellent observations about sharing a bed with a cat, and the emotional torment that is replacing a boiler – having just done the same, Mrs Chrisparkle and I really felt her pain. She built to an inventive musical climax designed for householders bogged down with domestic admin – very clever. She was on great form and went down very well in the audience.

Second up, and someone we’ve seen twice before, once as a comic and once as a host, was the excellent James Sherwood. I think this was the best we’ve seen him; he was at his most relaxed, so when his opening remarks were completely overshadowed by some nitwit comment from the audience, he completely went with the flow which meant he spent the first five minutes talking, totally at random – but absolutely hilariously – about socks. He’s at his best when, perched aside his keyboard, he reduces song lyrics to the absurd: I particularly enjoyed his version of Sly and the Family Stone’s Family Affair. He had some great material involving sexually transmitted diseases (as you do), including the story of the guy at a clinic who had five hundred sexual partners a year and his somewhat unique discharge. He looks a little like a poor man’s David Mitchell but is probably funnier. Absolutely brilliant set.

As if we hadn’t already had a great night, our headline act was the new to us – and absolutely astounding – Daliso Chaponda. Malawi’s greatest export after tobacco, Mr Chaponda has an infectious smile and delivers his thought-provoking and cheeky material at a cracking pace; and Mrs C and I did not stop laughing our heads off for the full half hour. “Five hundred years ago, this would have been an auction” he says, which absolutely nails his whole irreverent but very revealing attitude to comedy. If we’re unhappy at levels of immigration in the UK, he says, it’s our fault because all his history lessons at school in Malawi were about King Henry VIII, so of course he had to come here! He mocks us for being fed up at the prospect of a third general election/referendum in three years, with our revelling in the kind of “gratuitous democracy” that he could only dream of in Malawi. It’s not only political awareness comedy though – as his visual demonstration of enjoying a 69 when you’re a lot shorter than your partner testified. An absolutely superb set of varied comedy that we really didn’t want to end, and he got one of the best receptions I can remember at a Screaming Blue in all the eight years we’ve been coming. Just brilliant – and definitely a contender for January’s Chrisparkle Awards.

Two more Screaming Blues coming up this Spring, and after that you’ll have to wait till Autumn. Why wait? The next one’s in two weeks!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 18th March 2016

Posted on March 21, 2016 by therealchrisparkle

We’ve been a bit on-off with our Screaming Blue attendances this season, as other juicy sounding shows had been up for sale before the Screaming Blue dates were announced. But at least we were free for this one. Unfortunately, our regular host Dan obviously wasn’t, and we were treated to a replacement host for the night in the shape of Mr James Sherwood, whom we’d seen once before and enjoyed his act.

It’s the task of the compere to get us punters nicely warmed up for the first act. Unfortunately, no matter which tack Mr Sherwood took, it ended up as a dead end. We weren’t particularly responsive as a group, and his questioning line of “who’s had a nice day” just didn’t elicit the right kind of engagement. Things took a turn hugely for the better between the first and second acts though, when he reverted to his usual act and simply sat at the keyboard and played funny songs from a grammatically pedantic point of view. That was great. He also attempted some political humour, but we didn’t bite – we don’t normally do political humour here in Northampton. That said, simply mentioning the words “Michael Gove” isn’t really political humour.

So, on to our acts proper. First up, and new to us, was Caroline Mabey. She was at a disadvantage because at that stage we weren’t properly warmed up, but she seemed bright and breezy enough. Somehow, somewhere into the act we all realised that it wasn’t quite working, but Caroline kept on with gritty determination to get through it as best she could. I think the problem was that she adopts an “I’m mad, me!” type of persona but I don’t think that’s really who she is, so it comes over as rather forced instead of natural. Her voice and mannerisms are those of the bastard love child of Mel Giedroyc and Frankie Howerd, and I wouldn’t see that relationship ever getting off the ground. It was all a bit painful but we all got through it in the end.

Second act, and also new to us, was Peter Brush. A complete opposite to Caroline in many respects, because he too adopted a persona – that of a nerdy fish out of water – but you completely believed that that’s exactly how he is in real life. He paced his act beautifully, mined each moment for its full laughter quotient and above all had some marvellous material. With a surname like that, he must have been called “Daft-as-a” at school.

Final act, and someone we had seen once before, was Jonny Awsum. He was very good then but this time he completely smashed it, as common parlance would have it. He just comes out on stage and the mere sight of him makes you happy. His mix of comedy and music works brilliantly, and you are powerless to resist joining in and making silly noises to accompany his songs. It would be too much to hope that he really does rejoice in the surname “Awsum”.

What started a little shakily ended up being fantastic. Enormous fun – and still a few more gigs to go this Spring!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground, Derngate, Northampton, 20th September 2013

Posted on September 23, 2013 by therealchrisparkle

Autumn must be here if Screaming Blue Murder has returned to the Derngate. The last season was a huge success with nearly every night a sellout. Obviously not so many people realised the season has started again as it was a fairly quiet night, which was a shame as they missed out on some top comedy.

Dan Evans returns as our host and proves himself to be the compère beyond compare. As always he gets a great rapport going with the front row audience, which this week had a few minefields, with a group of guys minding a mate fresh out of prison (apparently) and another guy on a first date with a girl who had got absolutely sloshed by the first interval. Nevertheless he safely steered us through choppy waters to a comedy safe harbour.

Our first act was James Sherwood, who has a very quiet and reflective style and an amusing sense of slightly pompous self-satisfaction. The majority of his act was stationed at the keyboard, pointing out some ridiculous aspects of pop song lyrics. It was very clever and funny material; some of it sustained laugh out loud stuff, some a more contented chuckle, but all very enjoyable.

Second was the very different Maureen Younger, full of attack and not afraid to grapple with the bawdier aspects of life. She’s a naturally funny person, with very good material and a nice sense of self-deprecation. She built up a great relationship with the audience and her ebullience created an excellent contrast with the quiet introversion of the first act.

Last up was Ola, a late change of performer I think, and the only one of the three whom we had seen before. Again a very different kind of performer who delivers his material with supreme confidence at a deliberately slow and thoughtful pace; he builds up an air of being slightly arrogant and dismissive of fools – but then pricks his own balloon with subtle punch lines. He’s one of those comedians where his presence is totally engrossing all the way through; part one-act one-man comedy play, part rapid-reacting comic ping-pong with the audience. Terrific stuff.

A really well structured evening of comedy, and you can’t get better chuckle-value for your £12.50. On again in two weeks time – sadly we can’t make that one, why don’t you go and let me know how it went?