A great line up for the first Comedy Crate of the year at the Bradlaugh, and despite the nipping and eagerly cold night, a packed house of comedy devotees had an amazing time. Our host for the night was the warm and friendly Paul Revill, no stranger to this stage, who went about his task of getting to know the audience with his usual attack and merriment. He explored the possibilities of Hi-Vis bedroom antics, ascertained the most popular Quality Street amongst the audience, and spent the evening trying to work out in which field reticent third-row Leon was an expert. This was a burning question that was never truly answered, but Mr R kept everything moving and provided a delightful conduit between us and the three comedians sitting at the back.
None of the acts was new to us, so we already knew we were in for a great night. First up was Michelle Shaughnessy, emigrated from Canada three years ago without ever having set foot in the UK before – was it a wise move? She tells us about breaking up with her husband, her subsequent dating experiences and the benefits of sugar daddies, all with a marvellously confiding style, stringing us along with solid comedy material before delivering a hilariously unexpected punchline. Tremendously confident and assured, this is smart and clever comedy of the highest order.
Second up was Gbemi Oladipo, whom we last saw a few months ago in front of a very small audience where he worked his socks off to make an impact. Now, with a bigger, fully engrossed audience, he hit the ground running with some wonderfully daring material which, in the hands of a lesser mortal, could have sunk without trace; but Mr O has quickly become a true master of delivering bold, race-themed comedy, where you never feel uncomfortable because you’re always laughing your heart out. I wasn’t expecting him to touch politics, but his Kemi Badenoch material is fantastic! I also loved how including him on a recruitment panel backfired, the horrors of finding his mother’s sex manual, and why you should only have white male pilots on a plane. Everyone adored him and we can’t wait to see him again.
Our headliner was the inestimable Hal Cruttenden, whom we last saw in Edinburgh where he created a show based on the horrors of his recent divorce. Three years on, and he hasn’t been backward in coming forward going on new dates, which he tells us about with his irrepressible relish. He also reflects on how the world today is most definitely not what it was, which sounds like it would be a downer, but Mr C can make a shopping list funny. Fearing for the future of democracy, he sympathises with any young people in the audience (not that there were many of those!) His insight into why young people of today couldn’t be called up to go to war is brilliant, and one can only admire his self-awareness as to where he falls in the spectrum of a woman’s sequence of lovers, if I can express it that way. He ended his set with a hilarious story of what happened when he performed comedy to a group of young soldiers safely removed from Afghanistan, with all the death and destruction they would have seen. Doesn’t sound like comedy material – but in the hands of an expert like Mr C, it truly is.
A fantastic way to start the comedy year, and there is a bonus Bradlaugh night next Friday, 17th January – can’t wait!