Jessica Fostekew Archives - The Real Chrisparkle

It’s exciting that July has come around again so we enter the world of Edinburgh Previews at the Comedy Crate! Monday night saw a terrific full house welcome two comedians getting their comedic ducks in a row so that they can quack with confidence when the time comes.

First up was Jessica Fostekew, whom we haven’t seen for a criminally long time, with a work-in-progress set in preparation for her Edinburgh show, Iconic Breath; an unusual title that stems from the fact that her son hasn’t quite mastered the niceties of the English language yet. Jessica Fostekew cuts an engaging, confiding persona on stage; she starts off trying to work out whether we’re her kind of people – a few subtle assessments confirms we are, to much relief on all sides.

Ms F takes us on an enjoyable amble through her family experiences. Her son is growing up to be King of the Lads, despite her best efforts to encourage his sensitive side; fortunately, he has yet to learn the finer art of swearing and exactly what makes a hand gesture offensive. She gives us some brilliant general observations about family life, such as how marriage is managing always to stand exactly where your other half wants to stand (so true!) And who appreciated the power of a bum to efficiently regulate the administration of a WhatsApp group? There’s also a hilarious impersonation of a ghastly nasal American podcast woman, and an extraordinary account of a security incident at Zurich Airport that very nearly had an untoward consequence.

All the way through, she keeps up a wonderfully wry performance, constantly shifting the pace and tone of her delivery which keeps it very lively and unpredictable. Extremely funny, and almost the finished product which will be great by the time the Edinburgh Fringe starts. Jessica Fostekew’s Iconic Breath will be on at Monkey Barrel Comedy (3) in Blair Street every day from 11^th to 24^th August.

Headlining the evening was the irrepressible Josh Pugh, who doesn’t have an Edinburgh show this year but is nevertheless honing new material into shape for future use. Josh Pugh loves to take recognisable, simple ideas and twist them so that you look at them from a new direction. As he says, stand-up is an odd profession. You think you’ve got something funny to say but instead of sharing it with your nearest and dearest, or joking with the lads down the pub, you hire a mic and a room and invite a ton of strangers; what could possibly go wrong?

Josh’s new material is rooted in his experience of marriage and having young kids, and the ridiculousness of modern life. He has terrific material about what happens when you have two completely separate friendship groups of people from very different backgrounds and interests, and what happens when they collide; and the usefulness or otherwise of using an airfryer as part of a suicide attempt. But it’s family life that most concerns him at the moment, including how spending the day with a three year old isn’t bonding but boring; how the childbirth was so relaxed that they were able to take in an Amazon delivery at the same time – cue a fantastic wordplay callback moment – and what happened when he couldn’t find the squeezable comb designed to distract his wife’s attention from the pain of childbirth.

An hour in Mr P’s company is a guarantee of constantly new and refreshing material, delivered at a fast and intense pace, extremely funny and, you sense, also extremely honest. And whatever you do, don’t mention Twycross Zoo to him. A great night of comedy, much appreciated by all. And now it’s only a day or two before the Big Comedy Crate Weekender, which will be a hoot – or in fact, ten hoots, as that’s the number of shows we intend to see!

Last Friday’s Screaming Blue Murder could have started better for me. As we were waiting for the show to start, a young man blundered in, tripped over a chair leg and ended up spilling his cider all over my trousers. These things happen of course, but I would have preferred an apology rather than just an embarrassed titter. So I had to look to Mrs Chrisparkle to provide tissues to mop up my wet legs that remained cold and clammy for the rest of the evening. Never mind, his mother apologised to me in the interval and she was a stunner.

No Dan Evans this week, instead we had Angie McEvoy hosting. Angie’s been here a few times, both as host and as an act, and I must admit I do like her style. She’s very laid back, very relaxed; perhaps sometimes a little over-quiet, and there were times when she could have torn strips off those noisy so-and-so’s at the back who were having their own party and really irritating the rest of us. She did eventually do her wonderful heckle put-down act, which we’ve seen before and works a treat. She also did her routine involving Calpol, which always hits the funnybone.

Our first act was Luke Benson, 6ft 7in of Geordie comic. He had a good matey vibe about him, which contrasted quite nicely with some surreal wordplay – for example, he said he’d had his appendix removed, which now made him quite hard to reference. I guffawed. Others guffawed about two seconds later, which I guess meant I was more in tune with him than everyone else. I also liked his line about “describe yourself in three words”; answer – “concise”. Took me a while to get it. Took Lady Duncansby until the interval. He went down well in the audience.

Second was Jessica Fostekew, who reminded me a little of Helen Lederer, with her rather exquisite voice and general cuteness. She started off with a load of fast and furious one-liners, in a kind of Brechtian style, by telling us in advance that was what she would do, and by hurtling to the punch line almost before we’d had the chance to assimilate the lead-up. She had some good entertaining material, and I did enjoy her doing the travel news.

The final act was Geoff Boyz, a likeable Scottish guy with a strong confident style, some punchy material and the best Robert de Niro impersonation you are ever likely to see. He did a really good routine about staying as a guest in someone else’s house which brought out all the comic anxieties all of us face under those circumstances. One of those rare occasions where the headline act definitely worked the best.

Great news that it was a full house, as the numbers haven’t been great recently. Still the best comedy value you can get.