Tag Archives: Screaming Blue Murder

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 3rd February 2017

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Yet again the Underground was full for the most recent Screaming Blue Murder, the best value comedy you can get for £13.50 (£12.50 with your R&D Friends’ Membership). They’re keeping the curved front rows which means you can get more people in nearer the front, which improves the atmosphere and gives the performers more options where it comes to interrogating the customers.

Dan Evans was our host as usual, with his apparently effortless ability to make us laugh at our fellow comedy night devotees, although I’m sure it’s not really effortless. Early on, he caught a front row lady checking her watch, which was a massive fillip for his self-confidence as you can imagine. He wasn’t going to let her get away with that. Turns out she is the co-author of “Never Mind the Thigh Gap” which enabled Dan to get further embroiled in his own body image issues. Begging forgiveness that he might not have enough new material (he needn’t have worried, as he was on fire) he eluded to this very blog, gentle reader, although he fell short of pointing dramatically at me and declaiming “J’accuse!” Being outed like that is always a sticky moment though.

Our first act was David Morgan, whom we have seen before and who is always highly entertaining to watch. Much of his humour is based on his being gay and comparing straight and gay lifestyles, which, last time we saw him, really got the crowd on his side. This time, however, I felt we were a little more reserved in our responses towards him. Nevertheless, he had some lovely banter with the Netflix and Chill man in the front row and also delivered some great material about having babies. A little frantic at times, but that’s hardly a crime.

Next up, and a change to the advertised programme, was Harriet Kemsley, who was new to us, with an engaging stage persona and some absolutely excellent original material. Unfortunately, the sound coming off the microphone gave her voice a harsh, rasping edge, but she was so good that after a while we could ignore it. We really enjoyed her tales about being engaged, although the man in the audience who proposed to his girlfriend in a French chateau put us all to shame; and amongst her other material there was a refreshing take on the Kardashians to boot. All in all, excellent and we’d happily see her again.

Our final act of the evening is the unrepentantly direct son of a preacher man, Markus Birdman, whom we have seen several times and is always a complete joy. He’s just so irrepressibly mischievous; you can never tell which way he’s going to go. This time he spent most of his act telling us what he wasn’t going to do – thereby doing it, without doing it, if you get my drift. One of his high points this time was when he pretended to a high level of political correctness before going straight into a line about two lezzas (his words) from which he extricates himself beautifully. Intelligent, unpredictable, dangerous and always extremely funny. One of the best guys on the circuit.

Four weeks till the next Screaming Blue Murder which I will be attending without Mrs Chrisparkle, as she will be accompanying Lady Duncansby to see Lee Nelson in the Derngate whilst I am with Lady D’s butler Sir William (plus many others) on his stag night. I predict a riot.

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 20th January 2017

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Hurrah for the return of the Screaming Blue Murder comedy nights in the Underground room where, even in the dead of winter, when outside is below zero, you still have to wear your skimpiest clothes in order to survive the heat! Good to see 2017 starting well with a full house, a cracking compere and three top quality acts to get the year rolling. I liked the new layout of the front rows too – curling round the side of the podium so as to fit more punters in and closer to the stage. An excellent development.

So, yes, Dan Evans was at the helm again, trying to bring some order to the mayhem caused by an all-girl birthday party night on one side and an all-guy Old Bill group on the other. He was on great form – even giving us some new material! He was at his best sparring with those front row girls – it’s a gift for him to tease when they can’t put down their phones and you can barely see their skin for the tattoos. He got us perfectly warmed up and ready for our acts.

First up, and new to us, was Mark Smith. Not sure if it’s his voice, or his looks, but he put me in mind of an alternative Josh Widdicombe, which can’t be bad. He struck up a very good connection with the audience and had the confidence to leave nice pauses in his delivery which I admired. He had some excellent – and varied – topics, including girls on escalators, fooling his sister with bizarre facts and a great routine about shopping late night at the petrol station. A really good opening act.

Second, and an old favourite (hoping she’ll forgive the use of the word “old”), was Sally-Anne Hayward, whom we’ve seen I think four times before. The two boisterous groups of girls and guys were ideal for her to bounce off her brilliant material about sex, boyfriends, and more sex, and everyone absolutely loved her act. As I’ve mentioned on previous occasions, her material is now well-recycled, but if you’ve not heard it before it’s a corker, and if you’re familiar with it, it offers that same reassuring warmth of putting on a favourite album. Timeless battle of the sexes humour – and the laughter was continuing in the bar during the interval.

For our headline act, we welcomed Stuart Goldsmith, one of the country’s best comics, whom we last saw showing us his competitive streak in Rob Deering’s Beat This in Edinburgh. We’d also seen him in a Screaming Blue four years ago and in his own show at the Underground last year. The man works hard. His material is thoughtful, flexible and first rate, his delivery is chummy whilst always maintaining a subtle authority, and I really enjoyed seeing him again – and it’s clear that everyone else did too. When we saw him last year he was wondering how much “new father” material he should use in future gigs – and there wasn’t too much this time round, which I reckon is probably A Good Thing. Anyway, he’s coming back with his new show later in the Spring and we already have our tickets booked.

A fantastic start to the new season! Why don’t you come next time too?

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 4th November 2016

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Back again to the Underground at the Derngate for yet another fun-filled night of stand-uppers at the Screaming Blue Murder club. Every so often, our usual host Dan finds something else to do on an autumnal Friday night and so we have a stand-in host. According to the website it was going to be the excellent Andrew Bird, but instead we had the also excellent Carly Smallman! We’ve seen Ms Smallman a few times before; on the last occasion she caused something of a stir when she encouraged our friend HRH The Crown Prince of Bedford to go out with one of the girls in the front row, and they got offended when he refused. Well he is gay after all.

This time she was once again delving deep into the relationships in the front rows. She got into conversation with Farmer Tristan, who met his wife when she came to shove her hand up one of his sheep’s bottoms. Allegedly she’s a vet. Carly also discovered that one of the girls in the front row worked in mental health with children – comedy gold, as she pointed out, not. At least she could always fall back on her impersonations of penises – which she did very well. In fact, she was absolutely great and we both really enjoyed her MCing throughout the night. She really kept the energy and enthusiasm up and was a most excellent replacement for Dan!

Our first act was Stephen Bailey, whom we saw earlier this year as the support act for Katherine Ryan. Now here’s a comic who hits the ground running. With his reasonably outrageous camp style, he’s impossible not to like and his rapport with the audience is just instant and winning. It wasn’t long before he was making Sam, the front row policeman, squirm with embarrassment. As before, he has lots of scurrilous material regarding dating websites; his infamously bad impression of a straight man; and numerous, off the cuff jokes about anything to do with sex that pops into his head. He’s a complete star – and had the full house in hysterics. Absolutely brilliant.

Second up was Fern Brady, whom we have seen here once before; she still has that slightly laconic style that takes a little bit of getting used to, particularly after the high energy of Mr Bailey and Ms Smallman. But her material is great and her observations are spot on. She has a very nice sense of self-deprecation, and a wickedly funny understanding of how best to market herself on a dating website. She went down really well.

Final act was someone new to us – Gordon Southern. A brilliantly funny guy who again struck up an instant rapport with the audience and whose act developed into a nostalgia trip where the older members of the audience look back at those funny things we used to do in the good old days and the youngsters in the audience haven’t a clue what we’re talking about. All this is interspersed with nonsensical electronic jingles from his keyboard – fun facts. We both thought he was outstanding and his act seemed to fly by.

One of those glorious Screaming Blue nights where no one put a foot wrong and it was wall to wall laughter for two and a half hours. Sadly, we can’t make the final SBM of the year in two weeks’ time – but maybe you can?

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 21st October 2016

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Once again we were back at the Underground for another Screaming Blue Murder night. This time we were accompanied by our distinguished guests, the Sheriff of Shenstone and Lady Lichfield, who had already had a skinful in the Bar Hygge before the show. (If you’ve not tried it, it has a great trendy feel so the four of us fitted in perfectly, naturally.) Also once again, it’s great to see that the show had sold out – and why not, as you get such a great range of comedy at such a decent price.

Our host as usual was the enthusiastic Mr Dan Evans, who had the task of working out why one large section of the audience was 99% female – I’m not sure he ever got to the bottom of it, if you’ll pardon the expression, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was a shame that it was one of those nights when, if an audience member was asked what they did for a living, or where they lived, that they went all shy and unresponsive. That’s a tough way to treat a comic.

Our first act was Tez Ilyas, whom we’ve not seen before but he was on my shortlist for Edinburgh shows this year and just missed out because we couldn’t quite fit him in. A really funny, engaging, self-deprecating comic, with brilliant timing and a lot of great material. When someone describes themselves as openly Asian, you can guess the tricky kind of line they’re going to follow. His allusions to The Apprentice and to the News were spot on, and he absolutely had us in the palm of his hand. Then he made a schoolboy error – describing us as inhabitants of Peterborough, not Northampton. Gasps, shocks, stuns and disapproving moans later, he tried to extricate himself by explaining he was from Lancashire and how was he to know – it’s not like we had a proper cricket club… Further gasps, shocks, stuns and disapproving moans. Stop digging! It’s only because he was so likeable that we let him live. The Sheriff wondered if it was a deliberate ploy to get the town wrong in order to get the funny extrication out of difficulty as a consequence. I’m not sure – if it is, it’s a dangerous game! Anyway, he’s a genuinely funny guy and I’d be very happy to see him again.

Second up, and also completely new to us, was Sarah Callaghan. She has a strong, confident delivery, bordering on the faux aggressive, and a lot of her material was on the rudiments of sex – which is always funny, of course. I’d describe her approach as well urban, which didn’t quite connect with any of our party – we’re just too old and staid I suppose. That’s not to say she wasn’t enjoyable, because she was! It just wasn’t an act that I felt I had much in common with, so I didn’t get that much out of it. She had her hands full (figuratively speaking) with some irritatingly noisy girls at the back who just chattered all the way through her act. Fortunately, they left before the final act could make mincemeat of them.

Our headline act, whom we have seen twice before – and who just seems to get better and better all the time – was Ian Cognito, which has to be one of the best stage names in the business. No one can tell a really poor taste joke and make it bristle with delight like he can, which is both challenging to the audience and also incredibly funny. This time around, his most wicked observations dealt with paedophiles. His act is basically a string of one-liners, but delivered with superb style and at whatever pace he feels comfortable – this could be very fast or, more likely, aggressively languid. Winner of last year’s Chrisparkle Award for best Screaming Blue Stand-up. He might easily take the crown this year too.

Another one in a couple of weeks’ time – looks like a great line-up, so come along!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 16th September 2016

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Summer’s lease hath ended, gentle reader, which can only mean one thing – the return of the Screaming Blue Murder season to keep our spirits high through the oncoming months of mist and mellow fruitfulness. Our genial host, Dan Evans, was back in charge, and in greatform as he did his best to manage front-row Hayley (who’d had a few), the regular teachers, the newbies in the third row who did a flit after the second act and the rest of our packed house. Lots of excellent new material from Dan – which is most appreciated!

Our first act was a change to the advertised programme – Tom Goodliffe. He is a tall chap and clearly likes to discover if he’s the tallest chap in the room. He wasn’t. He has a nice nerdy friendly approach, and did a good job of keeping Hayley and her crew under control as she got progressively more worse for wear. He called out for any accountants to identify themselves – very disappointed that Mrs Chrisparkle kept her head low at that point. He did some nice double-entry material anyway. I also enjoyed his maths hip-hop songs and he’s the only comic I’ve seen who has taken advantage of the comedic effects of the different speeds of a tube escalator and its supporting handrail. Good fun and an excellent ice-breaker.

Our second act was Harriet Dyer, whom we were meant to see in Edinburgh but just ran out of puff for that particular show, so it’s good that we’ve finally seen her perform. To use the description quirky would be an understatement. I did find her funny but she’s the kind of performer that divides audiences – hence the departure of the newbies after her act. I really loved her material about getting hair removal product from Poundland – trust me, don’t do it! Mrs C confessed that if she’d seen her for a full hour in Edinburgh she might have had to rest up for the remainder of the day – she’s quite tiring to watch! But she went down well with the audience – on the whole.

Both the first two acts were new to us but, last on for the night was Steve Best, whom we had seen twice before. In a sense it was a shame that he and Harriet were on the same bill as they both have a very manic approach to their comedy. However, Steve is a sure-fire, super confident winning comic; littering his speech with throwaway meaningless lines that build up over the course of the act to overwhelm you with the utter silliness of it all – and it’s also very funny. He has a surprisingly fine aptitude for a spot of magic – which you’re definitely not expecting – and what he can do with a long balloon is nobody’s business. He completely nailed it – the evening, not the balloon.

There’s another Screaming Blue in two weeks’ time – unfortunately, we can’t go, but you can have our seats!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 27th May 2016

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Another Friday night at the Screaming Blue Murder club and they’d gone back to the original seating plan – no side seats so that people could stare into the comic’s ears. But that wasn’t the main topic of conversation before curtain up – we had a “technical problem” which meant that the show started a good half hour late. I know what the “technical problem” was, but I am sworn to secrecy. All I can say about it is: hahahahahaha.

A downside to starting late is that, if you’ve got a rowdy crowd, they’ve got another thirty minutes to get even more tanked up than normal. Such was the predicament facing Dan Evans when he came on to warm us all up. Within seconds of his opening gambit, a chap in the front row started commenting on Dan’s new trainers. (To be fair, they were very nice.) From then on, you could hardly shut him or his mates up. And there was something… slightly threatening about them. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t threatened, oh no sirree. But I sensed others were. So the question is, do you engage with them and let them make themselves look like a fool (can be funny) or do you ignore them? Minimal engagement seemed the best option. Unfortunately, one of our acts went for a more head-to-head alternative. More of that later.

Our first act was someone that we might have seen before – if so it was before I started blogging – Jo Jo Smith. Ms Smith is one helluva ballsy woman. You know the type. Sex was either the main topic or a subtopic in almost every sentence she spoke, and she was only too keen to share her experience of her post-menopausal dried-up vagina. This was particularly embarrassing for the wholesome Indian family sat in the front row. Only the father roared his head off the whole night. His offspring and his wife sat with their head in the hands wishing the earth to open up. So that Ms Smith didn’t engage with the difficult lads (quite right) she turned her attention to the Indians. Knowing the taboo nature of sex in India, the last thing those youngsters wanted was to have to confess to the nature of their sex lives in front of their parents. Their discomfort was pretty funny though. Ms Smith gave good value and we laughed a lot. She called me a silver fox, so she can’t be all bad.

Our second act, and someone we have seen before, very recently, was Dane Baptiste. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that Monsieur Baptiste (I continue to use his French title) is one of the most incisive and intelligent comics on stage today. Having seen him so recently I thought his act would largely be a repeat of what we’d seen before – but no, there was a lot of new stuff there. I absolutely loved his material about how straight guys need to have a lesbian best friend. And he dealt with the awkward guys extremely well. He has the audience in the palm of his hand and gives the most confident, assertive, but never remotely offensive, delivery. A total star in my book.

Our final act was Howard Read – again someone who is a frequent guest at these Screaming Blue Nights. He is a naturally most gifted comedian and has loads of material about fatherhood – including his famous lullaby, which I think he has sung every time he has been here but it is such a funny piece we’re always happy to hear it again. Unfortunately, he tried to take the difficult guys on and didn’t entirely win, so I felt we lost some valuable laughter time overall. Nevertheless, he did a great job in maybe slightly trying circumstances.

That’s it for summer! No more Screaming Blue Murders until September. Why not get booking now!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 13th May 2016

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Interesting new staging for the most recent Screaming Blue. Instead of the podium being at the front and all the seats in rows looking towards it, they’ve added two or three short rows either side of it, at 90 degrees (or 270, depending your viewpoint). Talking of viewpoints, my guess is that sitting there you will get an excellent view of Dan Evans’ ears, but I’m uncertain to what extent you will feel the show is directed at you. Maybe we should try sitting there some time.

Talking of Dan, he was absolutely on fire this week. It was a packed house (always helps) and there were a few slightly louder ladies in the front rows for Dan to banter with. I say banter… it was abuse really, but they deserved it.

Our first act, new to us, was Matt Rees. He has a wonderful, deliberate, deadpan delivery, with just a hint of the lugubrious, but he’s really funny. Inventive, original material, that really hit the mark. I loved how Poundland, in Swansea, is the name of a sex shop – when I was a student I had a friend who lived nearby and I remember a few Saturday nights that suggest the place hasn’t changed much. There was a very clever routine about violence in a children’s nursery, nice observations about South Wales dining, and much much more. We’d definitely like to see him again.

Next up, and also new to us, was Jo Neary. A very different approach to presenting a stand-up act; rather than just telling a sequence of stories, she went modular. First we had her nervous sex toys powerpoint presentation but with the slides missing; we had some Bjork; we had a sequence spoken by her bitchy best friend; there were a few jokes interspersed in all this; and finally we ended up with her interpretation of Pan’s People performing Nilsson’s Without You. She’s a naturally very funny lady, and whilst some of the material was a little hit and miss (mainly hit) at her best she was hysterical. The variety-style of her performance kept it fresh and engaging too.

Our last act, whom we have seen at the R&D before, was Mitch Benn. I could just refer you to my blog post from September 2014 because his act was – I’m pretty sure – 100% the same. Fortunately, his material is great and he also delivers with attack and panache, so it was pleasure to hear it all a second time. Although his anti-Eurovision slant got my goat again!

All three acts were very much appreciated by the happy audience. Another Screaming Blue in two weeks’ time. We’ll be there, so should you!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 22nd April 2016

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First Screaming Blue Murder for us for a few weeks and it also happened to be a birthday celebration! So when Dan Evans called out if anyone was celebrating anything I cried out an excitable “Yes!” to which he replied “oh not you…” It’s lovely to be a valued member of the audience. Actually, there were some other much more…vociferous people there who were also celebrating. My moment in the spotlight passed quickly.

Dan had plenty to contend with, with a front row half stocked with over-enthusiastic birthday partyers, and half with a party of police constables. You had to feel sorry for P.C. Tom, sat in the front row, right in the middle, and, as everyone agreed, thoroughly gorgeous looking. Every act commented on how he was a stunner. One of them even made him stand up and accept the (maybe jealous) plaudits of the crowd. He took it like a man – in other words he didn’t complain and he giggled a lot with his mate.

Our first act was bluff Northerner Chris Washington. He was new to us and, I must say, we really enjoyed his act. He took it all at a nice confident pace, and with bags of very funny material, you never doubted you were going to be in for a fun half hour. Included in his routine was an excellently bizarre weapons amnesty (in honour of the police guests I think), how men and women differ when they answer the door to the postie when they’ve just got out of bed, and the economics of dog ownership. I particularly enjoyed his mate’s CV – I’m presuming it’s not genuine but if it is, that’s terrific – and a brilliant last gag that mixes Lego with legover. An excellent start.

Our second act was Amy Howerska, whom we have seen before but as part of the hosting team of Spank! on our first visit to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014. Again, extremely funny, she’s one of those comedians whose act just flies by in a whoosh of sex jokes and brilliant observations and it’s hard to pin down whether she dwelt for very long on any particular subject. She did have some great material about not being emotional because she comes from a military family, has a wide range of excellent accents, including her Eastern European bikini wax lady, and she introduced me to the concept of Penis Braille. (Not on a one-to-one basis, I should add). Bright, funny; a little challenging from time to time but all to the good.

In a change to the advertised programme, our final act was Robert White, whom we have seen three times before. He’s always been brilliant in the past, and he was brilliant again. Mixing being gay with Aspergers’, chucking in a keyboard and a penchant for comedy songs, scouring the front row for straight guys to embarrass, what could go wrong? He has one of the fastest-thinking brains imaginable, so can seemingly create brand new, person-specific comedy material at the drop of a pair of pants. Just superb.

Another excellent house saw a terrific line-up. Why don’t you come next time? 13th May if you’re wondering!

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

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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 at the Derngate, Northampton, 12th February 2016

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I knew something had been missing from my life – this was our first Screaming Blue Night since 9th October! That’s four months Cold Turkey! So it was great to see an extremely full house last Friday night, so much so that they had to cram some extra seats curving round the front of the stage. In fact, I was at the box office earlier in the week when a chap came up to speak to the assistant next to me to book for the show, and was told, sorry, it’s sold out. The poor chap walked away very crestfallen.

Great to see Dan Evans back in his rightful place as Master of Ceremonies. Ceremoniously he quizzed those poor folk in reaching distance about their jobs, relationships, homes and so on, much to their discomfort and our amusement. It’s the way these things work. It was only when it was time to start the applause to welcome on the first act that I realised something was wrong. Angling his microphone stand at semi-erect he encouraged us to roar at two-thirds of the volume of which we were capable (of). I knew the drill – starting with a faded cheer which progressively gets louder and louder. Except – silence. A split-second of horror on Dan’s face. I let out a very muted “hooray”. All on my own. Oh God, the embarrassment. Of course Dan shamed us all into a proper reception for our first act, but it didn’t feel right. And that slightly muted response set the tone for most of the rest of the evening, even with a full house. Weird or what?

In an unusual turn of events, all three comics were new to us. Our first act was Ross McGrane, a jolly young fellow who you sensed was trying very hard but for whatever reason the material wasn’t coming out naturally. He never really got a good rhythm going, and a few times there was a pause that lasted just slightly longer than was comfortable. I think a drunker, meaner audience might have started heckling – but we were extremely well behaved. Too much swearing for my liking – I’m no prude, but I think the F word needs to be your backup in a humorous situation rather than replacing the humour itself. And his final gag – which took quite a long while in the setting-up – was really awfully unfunny. With some better material he could well go places. However, I really did love his line about why he was glad to have a daughter and not a son. You’ll have to guess what it is.

Second up was Eleanor Tiernan, who has the advantage of a rather charming Irish accent, and plenty of attack in her delivery. Again, some of her material just wasn’t quite funny enough – or maybe relevant enough. There were a few observations about Irish history and the relationship between Ireland and England that would probably have been much funnier had we been in Dublin. However, halfway through her act she turned a corner and gave us some terrific stuff. My notes read: “great vagina material” – I’ll leave you to surmise the rest. And she has a most innovative suggestion for the cause for yeast infections – really very funny indeed.

Our headline act was Andre Vincent, and considerably more mature and experienced (in a good way) than either of the first two comics. He finally managed to prise good quality laughter out of our rather dour audience with nice free-flowing stories that amused and entertained and then moved on before they got too detailed. Decently self-deprecating, with a confident delivery and we all went home in a much better mood than when we arrived.