All posts tagged Manchester

The Invisible Dot: New Wave Tour 2012 Review

by J.Dean on March 19, 2012 in Gigs, Reviews with No comments
The Invisible Tour Pic

Manchester correspondant Jonathon Dean checks out most anticipate UK comedy tour so far this year and lets us know which of the performers are set for big things in the coming years. 

Last month I previewed the Invisible Dot’s New Wave Tour, which shines a light on some rising stars of comedy. The first show of the tour, which took place in the John Thaw studio, a stage in the University of Manchester’s centre for drama and dance, was even better than I was expecting it to be. It was, admittedly, filled with the kind of people that one would expect to find in a university ‘drama and dance’ building, but that did nothing to spoil my evening, and indeed only provided me with almost as much comedy in overhearing people’s conversations than did the show itself (a rather amusing mix-up between Gary Numan and Gary Glitter when telling a story about a childhood encounter being my personal eavesdropping highlight!).

Kicking off the evening was sketch comedy from SHEEPS, breaking the fourth wall with gusto, allowing their stage personae to bleed into the sketches they create. Faux ineptitude like overly-serious straight men ruining would-be generic sketches allows them to dissolve brilliantly into bickering and keeping a running thread of humanity and character in what can occasionally be something of a hit-and-miss genre. Combined with their vision of a world filled with caricatured celebrities in unlikely situations, SHEEPS make for a highly entertaining trio, though perhaps slightly too young to successfully pull off some of the characters they intend without feeling a little like a university comedy society revue.

Nick Mohammed, character comic extraordinaire, uses a single prop to craft each of his wonderfully well-observed creations. From the screamingly camp “Mr. Swallows”, to the posh girl on campus, to the conductor leading a particularly strange orchestra, each character allows not only a joke at the expense of the characters we each meet in our everyday lives (I think any of us studying at university know the “Oh my G, it was like, totes random!” girl, and if you’re anything like me you take steps to avoid her) but also an opportunity for Nick Mohammed to show off the different types of comedy he’s capable of; from stories with punchlines, to observational humour, to playing with musical cues. He’s a genius when it comes to spotting the funny bits of normal people, and equally fantastic at turning himself into them.

Headliner Jonny Sweet ends the evening on an unusual high. His show, an hour long lecture about the decommissioned naval frigate, the HMS Nottingham, is a very strange subject for comedy, but all Sweet seems to need in subject matter is a background canvas against which his comic personality can shine. He appears to have been grown out of the same vat of bonkers-juice as Doctor Who’s Matt Smith – his foppish charm and eccentricities instantly endearing the audience to him. He actually began the show by personally greeting every member of the audience, hugging some, briefly chatting with others, and escorting confused newcomers to their seats. His mock-old fashioned statements, complete with outrageously caricatured misogyny just added to his stage presence. Not that he needs it, this is a man who positively glows with being the centre of attention; I got the feeling that even if he didn’t love it, he wouldn’t have much choice in the matter. It’s almost impossible to take your eyes off him for any period of time – no wonder he won the Best Newcomer award at Edinburgh a few years ago. This man is going to be big!

The Invisible Dot tour continues for another few weeks, and if the rest of the acts involved in it are this good, then it’s worth checking out. Not only because it’s a fantastic night, but in a few years’ time you’ll be able to tell everyone that you saw them before they were famous.

Seymour Mace – XS Malarkey – 17/01/2012

by J.Dean on January 24, 2012 in Gigs, Reviews with 2 Comments
Seymour Mace Pic

Crispy Comedy Cuts writer Jonathon Dean reviews a very special night of comedy at Manchester’s critically acclaimed XS Malarkey club night. The event took place at XS Malarkey’s new home Platt Chapel and featured performances from Seymour Mace, Sarah Millican and Toby Hadoke.

“I’ve never killed a man!” seems a strange choice for a catch-phrase, but it’s one that compère Toby Hadoke somehow found himself adopting for the evening. His usual charmingly eccentric and blustering self peppering the warm-up and linking sections with self-commentary, and bringing the new sections of the audience on-side – those of us who are regulars at the club already know and love Toby, but those turning up primarily to see a celebrity guest for cheap take a little more convincing.

Taking up the open spots were James Meehan, whose friendly, cheeky style warmed the crowd up nicely, and Matt Hollins, whose amiable personality and humble, self-deprecating remarks kept the crowd happy to watch him, but unfortunately his routine was filled with well-worn subjects for comedy, making it difficult to stand out for an XS audience so used to attending comedy shows.

The high-profile act pulling in the crowd for the evening was Sarah Millican, testing out material for her new television show, and while the club does not announce guests of her profile (preferring to ensure the regulars are able to attend), a few tweets brought some new faces to Platt Chapel. As is usually the case when new material is being tested, it was a stop-start affair, with lots of rifling through notebooks – but her commentary rescued it from getting uninteresting. She went down a storm (and was it ever going to be any other way?), and although I was wary about her performing the same club two weeks in a row becoming stale, the different jokes she brought to the table allayed my fears.

Headlining the evening was strangeness enthusiast, backing-dancer impersonator, and all-round bonkernaut, Seymour Mace (Craig/Steve in BBC Three’s Ideal), who was, as per usual, the highlight of the evening. His surreal style and manic, borderline psychotic delivery started the audience off on the back foot. Confused reactions and nervous giggles eventually gave way to roaring laughter as the humour of his act gradually dawned on them.

Following a TV personality like Sarah Millican can be a daunting prospect for any comic – particularly when they have wildly diverging styles. I’ve seen great acts bomb before, because their humour was so starkly different from the rest of the comics on the bill, but Seymour Mace skilfully turned the initial hesitant reaction from those portions of the crowd unfamiliar with him into waves of laughter – earning himself the biggest applause of the evening.

There’s a reason XS Malarkey has won so many awards; it manages line-ups like this, crowds as friendly and welcoming as any comic could hope for, and door prices a fraction of the price of most other clubs. So three cheers to all the people who volunteer their time and effort to keeping it that way!

Glenn Wool ‘No Lands Man’ Tour Review

by J.Dean on January 20, 2012 in Gigs, Reviews with 2 Comments
Glenn Wool Tour

Crispy Comedy Cuts reporter Jonathon Dean gives us a review of Glenn Wool’s new show “No Lands Man” on it’s second date of the tour at Manchester’s award winning Frog & Bucket comedy club. 

Glenn Wool stands triumphant in a Guns’n’Roses t-shirt as the self-confessed “scruff” turns in a stunning performance at Manchester’s Frog and Bucket comedy club.

His seamless blend of hillbilly politics, surreal jaunts into the land of fantasy and “average-Joe”, common sense rants are what mark Wool’s style as unique and charming. The intelligence to his comedy, hidden behind a veneer of hard rockin’ and hard drinkin’, is of pointing out the hypocrisy in society; how things work differently when you’re long-haired and bearded than when you’re in a sharp suit.

For a Wednesday evening show, the audience was a real mixture of people, and nicely populated; not too busy, not too empty, and the atmosphere was very warm and friendly as a result. The Frog has had plenty of experience with shows like this, and the ability to close the balcony and effectively half the size of the club allows for great flexibility in audience sizes, whilst maintaining the atmosphere of a busy club.

Wool’s cheeky asides to the audience, and sly digs at himself, really were the icing on the cake here. The audience was friendly enough that he could rant without impediment, and then crack a joke about himself without inviting a barrage of heckles from drunken sales reps. As much as a few characters dotted about the audience can add to the atmosphere of a comedy club, the tendency towards attempting to one-up the comic’s performance can often spoil an act’s momentum. This was entirely absent here, which is what I enjoy about the more polished mid-week comedy rather than the brash, stag-do-orientated weekend shows, despite the smaller (“more intimate”, to use a useful reviewer’s euphemism) audience sizes.

This is the second date of the UK tour of his Edinburgh Festival hit “No Land’s Man”, and it’s a great show. Glenn Wool has a real talent for making people laugh, and manages to wield multiple types of humour at once, from the political to the down-to-earth, via surreal flights of fancy and the downright crude and borderline offensive. Fitting all that into a single anecdote is a mean feat for any comic; not bad for around a tenner.

Winter Gig Guide #Manchester

by J.Dean on December 2, 2011 in Gigs with No comments
Glenn Wool

Last week we let you know what was going on in the capital over the festive period. Here’s our Manchester reporter Jonny Dean with his comedy gig guide, giving some geographical balance to proceedings. 

Jack Whitehall, star of Channel 4’s comedy-drama ‘Fresh Meat’ and ‘8 Out Of 10 Cats’ regular performs his “Let’s Not Speak of this Again” show at Salford’s Lowry Theatre on Thursday, December 8th. The British Comedy Award-nominated ‘posh boy’ comedian has received praise for his comedic style from both the Telegraph and the Metro.

http://www.thelowry.com/event/Jack-Whitehall-Lets-Not-Speak-Of-This-Again

Greg Davies brings his Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated “Firing Cheeseballs at a Dog” Edinburgh Festival show to Salford’s Lowry Theatre on Sun 11th December. The comedic giant (at an impressive 6’ 8”), regular ‘Mock the Week’ panellist and ‘Inbetweeners’ Head of Sixth Form comes with an array of five-star reviews and promises to be a fantastic show.

http://www.thelowry.com/event/greg-davies1

Russell Howard arrives at the MEN Arena on the second run of shows following his sellout “Right Here, Right Now” arena tour on Thurs 15th December. The star of ‘Russell Howard’s Good News’ and numerous panel shows, with his incredible ability to say even the most appalling things while still making your gran want to adopt him, it is sure to be an amazing night.

http://www.men-arena.com/events/?page_id=1858

New Year’s Eve Stand Up at Manchester’s Comedy Store. A night of comedy to ring in 2012, compered by Phoenix Nights’ Justin Moorhouse (sans tiger facepaint), and featuring acts from top-rated comics Phil Nichol, Andrew Ryan, Alex Boardman and ‘Mock the Week’s Alun Cochrane.

https://etickets.thecomedystore.co.uk/choose-tickets.aspx

Glenn Wool, the self-confessedly scruffy Canadian, brings his show “No Man’s Land” to the Frog and Bucket comedy club on Wednesday, January 18th 2012. The comic somehow manages to mix extreme silliness and deep political insights without it ever seeming out of place.

http://www.frogandbucket.com/2011/11/29/glenn-wool-mans-land/

 

Frog & Bucket Comedy Club #Manchester

by J.Dean on November 28, 2011 in Gigs, Reviews with No comments
Frog & Bucket

Manchester’s Frog and Bucket comedy club has been the springboard for many a promising comic’s career, helping to launch the likes of Peter Kay, Johnny Vegas and Alan Carr to celebrity status.

Situated in Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter district, famed for its nightclubs and slightly off-the-wall bohemian bars, it is a favourite for stag and hen dos, birthdays and office parties. The flagship event at the Frog, ’Barrel of Laughs’ on Fridays and Saturdays, is very much used to this kind of loud and rowdy crowd, with many of the regular comics expertly putting down hecklers and demanding the crowd’s respect for the stage. It’s a very “Friday night” event, which shows in its popularity and £16 door price, but its great reputation is well justified.

Compère Dan Nightingale is among the best, seamlessly transitioning between audience interaction and prepared material, keeping his sections of the show rocketing along at an impressive pace without any loss of quality. Simultaneously being guaranteed laughs from his gags and delivering everything a comedy audience expects of their host for the evening.

Danny Deegan provided the opening spot, and his cheeky tales of immature practical jokes and entertaining ideas about things to do in the bedroom went down a storm with the crowd. Growing up locally (in Bury) allowed him to add a dash of local colour to the jokes, without feeling contrived in the way that visiting comics often can.

The second slot was filled by the manic Phil Walker, whose rants and faintly controversial social comments received a more reserved reaction from the Friday night crowd, but his appeals to nostalgia and barbs against modern youth culture were an instant hit with the older audience members.

Finally, the headlining Smug Roberts, with his down to earth stories about his family and children, complete with a heart warming ring of truth, found himself lost in entirely the wrong audience. The late November Friday night crowd, with early Christmas parties and stag nights simply weren’t interested in his jokes. I’ve seen Smug many times before and his material is top notch – however, the crowd was looking for knob gags and pop-culture remarks, which simply isn’t his forte. I’ve rarely seen a comic elect to leave the stage early without a particularly nasty reaction from the crowd, but that’s precisely what Smug Roberts did – fifteen minutes into his set, he announced that he was experienced enough to know when it was time to leave, and duly vacated the stage.

It was an unfortunate end to a great night, but the now-restless crowd were happy enough to proceed straight on to the after-show disco with its late-licence bar, so perhaps I’m in the minority in thinking that.

XS Malarkey Comedy Club #Manchester

by J.Dean on November 14, 2011 in Gigs, Reviews with 4 Comments
XS Marakey Banner

Introducing the first of many Manchester comedy updates from Jonathon Dean, the latest addition to the Crispy Comedy Cuts blogging team. He dives straight in with this review of the critically acclaimed XS Malarkey Comedy Club.

Celebrating its 14th birthday this year, Manchester’s award-winning XS Malarkey recently made its triumphant return after a long summer hiatus. Despite its new home at Platt Chapel, Fallowfield, and some new faces in its student-heavy audience, it manages to retain that wonderful niceness that separates XS Malarkey from your everyday comedy club.

Your host, as ever, is the loveable Toby Hadoke, who is regarded as something of a national treasure by the club’s regulars. His friendly, often bewildered demeanour and self-deprecating remarks about his own fashion faux-pas and personal eccentricities help to underline Malarkey’s down-to-earth feel and eschewing of the bland, scathing corporate slickness to which many other comedy clubs aspire.

The club’s determination to offer the opening slots to acts that are new to the circuit has plenty of advantages; as well as injecting new blood into the circuit, it helps to keep the door costs down (£3 for members, £5 for non-members, with a lifetime membership costing a scant £8!), and also means that established acts remember the club from their early days and are happy to return the favour. Regular patrons have been treated to acts like John Bishop, Jason Manford and Jack Whitehall, for the same door price as any other comic.

Platt Chapel and XS Malarkey seem to be a match made in heaven. The self-confessed “community hub” of Platt Chapel, with its volunteer staff and “everyone pitch-in together” approach suits XS Malarkey’s non-profit, newcomer-friendly and fan-loyal ethos down to the ground, bending over backwards to accommodate the club’s many supporters.

It’s a far cry from the pub-venues the club has previously had, who seemingly cared little about the evening as anything other than a device for bringing in punters to the bar – to the point where the previous venue, the (now defunct) Queen of Hearts, didn’t so much as provide heating during last year’s frostbitten winter months. The new venue is a little pricier behind the bar (as many of the student patrons have remarked) but with all the effort and enthusiasm the Chapel’s team bring to the evening, and the sense that the revenue is doing something other than lining a manager’s pockets, it feels somehow better that way.