Tag Archives: Roger Monkhouse

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 27th February 2025

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Constant as the Northern Star, it was time for another Screaming Blue Murder at the Royal and Derngate – scheduled to be the last in the old Royal theatre before moving back to its proper home in the freshly de-RAAC’d Underground in April. Also, as firmly identified with Screaming Blue as Heinz with Baked Beans, was our regular host and MC Dan Evans, suffering from the sniffles, but there’s a lot of it about. Fortunately a kind lady to my left was able to offer him the occasional tissue. I could have given him a whole packet, but didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

Dan set about mingling his way through the crowd, which seemed largely made up of escapees from tough and dangerous East Side Northampton – NN3 to the cognoscenti. We also met Ginny, the English student who doesn’t attend uni – a somewhat complicated arrangement – and Ryan, the crime lecturer who didn’t return for the final act and, thereby, as is always a risk if you do that, missed the best bit. We also met Roger from Northern Ireland, whose unexpected mime for the reason he’s now in Northampton left Dan appropriately speechless.

Showing how our cup ranneth over with talent in this line up, our first act, normally a headliner, was Roger Monkhouse, someone we’ve admired and enjoyed many times over the years. Celebrating his 60th birthday apparently, his young fogey persona is now distinctly becoming at least middle-aged; I can’t say he’s now an old fogey, because he’s still younger than me. He delivers his material as almost a stream of consciousness, that fools you into thinking he’s making it up on the spur of the moment; but in fact it’s meticulously crafted to give that effect. His material centres on that recognisable confusion of living in the modern world as a no-longer modern bloke, with some lovely relatable observations on how we all just manage to plod on despite our brains and bodies letting us down. Always a delight.

Our next act, and new to us, was Dee Allum, who introduces herself from the start as a trans woman, and whose material centres on her life and the problems she faces, but also you can see the joy her new identity brings her. She has a relatively quiet style, occasionally feeling a little tentative until she gets the vibe of the audience but then grows in confidence as her set progresses. There’s a lot of refreshingly new and innovative material here; I loved her deliberately long and immaculately phrased story involving Kurdish and Yorkshire, and there are some terrific insights into managing a relationship when you come out as trans during the relationship. She ends her routine with a brilliant tale of sperm donation. I’m tempted to say we’ve all been there, but of course we haven’t; but if you have, you really get it. Definitely One To Watch.

After two gently delivering wordsmiths, our headliner was Phil Nichol who gave the evening a hugely energetic kick up the backside. Buzzing with excitement, he exploded around the stage with his uniquely unrestrained hilarity; a bit like the most endearing spoilt kid you ever met. He radiates a strange blend of danger and affability, mixed with oodles of cool, and a quick comedy brain that seizes any opportunity. Armed with his guitar, he gave us some excellent rock parodies, and fixated on poor second row Luke, upon whom he (literally) thrust his faux-sexual advances. Luke proved his worth later when he joined Phil on stage and showed what a good sport he was. Extremely funny throughout and a great way to end the night.

Review – Comedy Crate at V&B, Northampton, 5th December 2023

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The Comedy Crate took over the upstairs room at V&Bs yesterday for another cracking night of comedy in one of Northampton’s most upmarket venues! The layout and seating had improved from the last show back in October and the town’s comedy fans enjoyed a veritable feast of hilarity from start to finish with four cracking acts all on top form.

Our host, as in October, was local lad Pete Teckman, a jovial japester with an easy style, and a nice way of getting comedy gold from the audience, which this time included my father-in-law, Lord Prosecco, explaining the secret of his youth much to the embarrassment of Mrs Chrisparkle and myself. Pete got to know the marital ins and outs of a few of the punters, and I loved his unique take on connubial Wordle.

Our first act, and new to us, was Michelle Shaughnessy, a smart talking cookie from Toronto, coping with a long-distance relationship, and offering brilliant observations about stalking her husband and some blistering couple of lines about landing strip lady gardens. At some point during her routine she twigged that the average age of the V&B audience definitely falls on the mature side, and she nicely tweaked her material to suit us. Confident, ascerbic and very funny, she was a great start to the evening.

Next up, and also new to us, was Kent Cameron, a massive scary deep-voiced pale Scottish ginger, who’s obviously as soft as cottage cheese, and he plays on that juxtaposition between appearance and content absolutely beautifully. He sets up a brilliant rapport with the crowd and we all loved him. He has terrific material – which sounds like it should be challenging but is truly good-natured – about his acromegaly, a form of gigantism. And he finished his set with one of the funniest sequences of stand-up I’ve ever heard, his account of being on the receiving end of a colonoscopy – something that the average age of the audience meant we all knew a lot about. A fantastic new find.

Our headliner, and someone we’ve seen many times, was the irrepressible Roger Monkhouse, with his superbly structured comedy of middle-aged ennui, disdain of young people (not many of those in last night!) and delightfully unreasonable anger at the world in general. A self-confessed 58-year-old, his set was full of hilarious observations, framed by his wonderfully self-deprecating comic persona, and all beautifully delivered. He had us all in the palm of his hand – even if most of us were thinking he was a trifle on the young side.

One of those excellent comedy nights when everyone was a winner. The Comedy Crate return to V&B next year, but meanwhile I’m looking forward to their next show at the Charles Bradlaugh on 14th December!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 22nd March 2019

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Another packed house for 2-and-a-half hours of fun courtesy of the Screaming Blue Murder team – the best value comedy in town. This season’s dates have been rather spread apart which means that when the next show comes around, you’re really in the mood for it. And that was all too evident this week as the audience were really up for a good time and, if I may so myself, as an audience, we were all pretty terrific.

We welcomed our usual host Dan Evans, his three amazing guests and, as ever, his two sumptuous intervals. This week Dan ended up talking to Liz and John from Earl’s Barton – the crowd couldn’t decide whether to be sniffy about them or jealous of them; the jovial man who runs the Northampton auction house (I recognised him from my auctioning days), and the front row girls who were all one-upping each other (“I’ve got a house” “well at least I’ve got a baby” etc). He handled it all with his usual remarkable bonhomie.

This was one of those great nights of comedy when you’ve seen all the acts before so you more or less know what’s coming but they were all on such cracking form that they all surprised you with their excellence. First up was Paul Pirie, whom – I have to say – we didn’t really enjoy much when we saw him here way back in 2012. However, this time he was rip-roaring sensational. He bombasts you with a ton of brilliant silly observations with a very powerful delivery, interspersed with some genuinely wacky and funny voices. He’s not one of those comics who give you thoughtful material for your brain to continue to peruse for the next few days; he’s a wham-bam thank you ma’am sort of chap – blame the Red Bull. His set was jam-packed with material, most of which I can’t remember because it was so “of the moment”; although I do remember he said he failed RE at school; which is about as impossible as failing lunch.

Next up, and another favourite, was Karen Bayley. It’s been a few years since we’ve seen Ms Bayley, and, although it’s still largely the same I’m a cougar watch out young man routine that she always gives, the passage of time meant that it still felt fresh and really funny. She did build up a fantastic rapport with the audience – and not just the women this time, which makes an enjoyable change. You sense that though her material is bawdy, deep down she’s probably quite sensitive and polite, which creates a curiously interesting stage persona. Very funny indeed.

Headlining on Friday night was Roger Monkhouse, whom we’ve also seen a few times now and who has cultivated a young fogey personality. He has a terrifically self-deprecating tone and uses it to great advantage with some rather savage observations about life and relationships, whilst dipping into the inevitable horrors of politics. His material is always solid and on the ball, and he too went down tremendously in the hall.

One of those occasions where it all came together, with host, guests and audience all on top form. Seven weeks to wait until the next one. Seven!! That’s mental cruelty.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 23rd January 2015

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Hurrah for the return of a new year of Screaming Blue Murder nights at the Royal and Derngate. If you’ve not been before, for the price of modest main course in a restaurant you get three great comedy acts, two wonderful intervals and one fabulous host. One person who hadn’t been before was HRH the Crown Prince of Bedford, who was on a state visit to Northampton and accompanied us to the show. The prince has a tendency to sit in the front row at comedy shows, a foolhardy act which we tried to resist, resulting in the application of the grand old art of compromise, with our sitting in the second row with him on the central aisle so that he could engage in idle badinage with the comics should they invite him to do so.

Our jovial host was the masterful Dan Evans, with his unerring ability to warm an audience up by mixing a few brief jokes with some teasing of the good sports in the first few rows. With a packed house (Lady Duncansby was too late to get a ticket) Dan had plenty to choose from, and so we were introduced to Rob from Wootton School, a lady with a “don’t go there” back-story about her marriage and a pharmaceutical consultant who couldn’t have been more mysterious if he tried. Actually he did try – a lot.

Our first act was Tiffany Stevenson, whom I remember from the TV series Show Me The Funny, which was a number of things including absolutely fascinating, but sadly hardly ever funny. She comes out with bundles of attack, oodles of confidence, and a lot of top quality material. She had some good observations about binge culture – whatever that might be – as well as maintaining that all men are gay (to a certain extent) because they love their own penis. I’d have thought the definition of gay was loving other men’s penises, but there you go. I’m delighted to say that I’m one of the few people on this planet who don’t know who the Kardashians are, but even so I could tell that her routine about them was highly entertaining. By the way, my autocorrect changed Kardashians to Lard Ashrams, which might not be that inappropriate, from what I understand. Miss Stevenson engaged with the Prince on the subject of age and hangovers, and I got the sense she quite fancied him. Very funny, very lively and pacey – a great opener to the evening.

Second up was Joe Lycett, whom we have seen here before and whom I remembered as being very good value. A doyen of young middle-class camp, his engaging conversational style gets you on his side right from the start, and we spent a half hour or so of idle chitchat that didn’t really go places but nor did it matter. He ended his set, like he did in 2012, with an amusing account of a difficult email conversation – it must be his stock in trade. This time it was about having to pay 30p to use the toilets at Euston Station, a fee about which Mr Lycett was not unreasonably peeved. Extremely funny, and very popular with the crowd.

Our final act was Roger Monkhouse; again someone I remembered with fond hilarity from his previous Screaming Blue appearance. I hope Mr Monkhouse wouldn’t be offended if I were to say that facially he reminds me of what E.T. would look like if he was a General Practicioner. He has a rather quiet, intellectual style that gives him a good sense of authority when talking about politics and Other Important Issues. He also ended up directing some of his material at the Prince – including apologising for the state we’ve got the nation into and that his generation is going to have to pay for. Often political stuff doesn’t go down that well in Northampton, but Mr Monkhouse certainly hit our collective funnybone – maybe because it’s a general election year we’re going to be more attuned to it in 2015.

A great start to the season – next one is on February 6th. You really ought to come!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton 11th February

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Another Comedy night last Thursday, please see an earlier blog entry for general details. Absolutely packed they were, they had to bring in extra chairs and the volunteer ushers worked their socks off to make sure everyone had a seat. Well done to them!

Dan Evans was the compere again, new jokes, they didn’t always work but that didn’t matter as he is excellent at being self-deprecating, which made it funnier.

First act was Karen Bayley, we thought she had a great set, full of funny content, maybe more geared toward making women laugh rather than men. I saw quite a few younger guys looking quite stoney-faced through her set, but I’m old enough to realise that if you try to have a good time, generally you do! A nice segment about what happened when she went to a swingers’ party, threw her car keys in the middle, but was the only one who did… My only criticism would be that she could have worked the crowd just a bit more. But she had lots of good content so it didn’t matter too much.

Second was Canadian Ron Vaudry, very quick witted, fast to react to the crowd, the setting, the lights, his total “performance environment”. Nice observations about life in England from a Canadian’s point of view. Right on the centre of the front row was a senior local police officer (a D C no less) with his son – this had been winkled out of him during Dan Evans’ introductory banter – and it was enjoyable to watch Ron Vaudry’s slight discomfort at telling jokes involving drug taking and drink driving!

Last was Roger Monkhouse, who had an unusual style with a slightly young fogey persona, occasionally stuttering (deliberately I’m sure) with his “I can’t quite understand the world today” observations. He admitted to being 45 and that’s why he’s now becoming a grumpy old man. Hmmm. I’ve got a few years on him but I’m not grumpy. Actually he wasn’t grumpy – more wistful in a bemused sort of way. Anyway again very good content, possibly could have done with more interaction with the audience, but all three acts went down very well and a bunch of very happy people emerged from the theatre at 10.55 last night. Brilliant value! No more comedy for a few weeks but we are seeing End of the Rainbow later this week to which I am really looking forward.