The "theatre" thread has reminded me that, along with "Radio", we haven't got a couple of dedicated fora for non-Film, TV, Music and Books pastimes.
Anyway, I will kick this off by saying that I just about managed to get a couple of gigs in during the Bath Comedy Festival - mainly as there were two on the same night in the same venue.
The first one was a, I assume, work in progress gig from Hardeep Singh Kohli. Now I love him on Radio 4 and TV but have never seen anything of him live, I think, certainly not for a while. He was very different from his avuncular radio-TV image, almost instantly bringing in spikier material slagging off Adrian Chiles and doing a "Brown people do this..." type element. Initially, I thought he was pissed off about playing a relatively small gig in a revamped social club to about 100 people. However, his sincere thanks to all those involved at the end suggested otherwise. I think that he was going out of his way to put a distance between "live" and "radio/TV". He made a point of saying that those used to him on the One Show must be surprised by his swearing.
He even managed to have someone walk out - after some heckling - early on with a, let's say, questionable Operation Yewtree joke. His material was along the lines of of the observational "What's that about" arena and there were some familiar tropes - British ex-pats abroad, growing up in an ethnic minority family in the 70s etc. There were 4 Sikh girls sitting right in front of him which mean that he could interact with them in a funny if sometimes impenetrable way but, as he pointed out, that is what it is like for Indians listening to an English comedian. At the end of the day, I laughed and it was well worth £12 for an hour's set. I wonder what his more polished stand-up set is like.
After him was a German stand-up called Paco Erhard who had a show called "The Worst German" which didn't inspire me as there appeared to be a lot of shows called "Crap at being Irish" and whatnot.Also, in his blurb, it had the "Bill Hicks mxed with...." description which makes one's heart sink. I, very unfairly, was compared him to Henning Wehn for the first 10 minutes. He went on to actually deserve the Hicks comparison by addressing nationalism, anti-immigration and stereotyping in a reasonably original and challenging manner. He also addressed the ludicrousness of sex and even had a smoking schtick that, happily, didn't evoke Hicks or, worse, Leary.
It felt like he was going out and giving us his best show while Singh Kohli felt a bit more improv/riffing "warm-up to Edinburgh" style. Also, at £8 for a show that I laughed at more, Erhard won out. However, £20 for 2 good comedians shows why comedy can be one of the best nights out.
Anyway, I will kick this off by saying that I just about managed to get a couple of gigs in during the Bath Comedy Festival - mainly as there were two on the same night in the same venue.
The first one was a, I assume, work in progress gig from Hardeep Singh Kohli. Now I love him on Radio 4 and TV but have never seen anything of him live, I think, certainly not for a while. He was very different from his avuncular radio-TV image, almost instantly bringing in spikier material slagging off Adrian Chiles and doing a "Brown people do this..." type element. Initially, I thought he was pissed off about playing a relatively small gig in a revamped social club to about 100 people. However, his sincere thanks to all those involved at the end suggested otherwise. I think that he was going out of his way to put a distance between "live" and "radio/TV". He made a point of saying that those used to him on the One Show must be surprised by his swearing.
He even managed to have someone walk out - after some heckling - early on with a, let's say, questionable Operation Yewtree joke. His material was along the lines of of the observational "What's that about" arena and there were some familiar tropes - British ex-pats abroad, growing up in an ethnic minority family in the 70s etc. There were 4 Sikh girls sitting right in front of him which mean that he could interact with them in a funny if sometimes impenetrable way but, as he pointed out, that is what it is like for Indians listening to an English comedian. At the end of the day, I laughed and it was well worth £12 for an hour's set. I wonder what his more polished stand-up set is like.
After him was a German stand-up called Paco Erhard who had a show called "The Worst German" which didn't inspire me as there appeared to be a lot of shows called "Crap at being Irish" and whatnot.Also, in his blurb, it had the "Bill Hicks mxed with...." description which makes one's heart sink. I, very unfairly, was compared him to Henning Wehn for the first 10 minutes. He went on to actually deserve the Hicks comparison by addressing nationalism, anti-immigration and stereotyping in a reasonably original and challenging manner. He also addressed the ludicrousness of sex and even had a smoking schtick that, happily, didn't evoke Hicks or, worse, Leary.
It felt like he was going out and giving us his best show while Singh Kohli felt a bit more improv/riffing "warm-up to Edinburgh" style. Also, at £8 for a show that I laughed at more, Erhard won out. However, £20 for 2 good comedians shows why comedy can be one of the best nights out.
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