One Touch Comedy Corner

[Toby Gymshorts]

Going to see Bill Bailey on Monday evening. Looking forward to it.

[Gangster Octopus]

He's wonderful live. Although in the years that I've watched him, the venues have got much bigger...

[Guy Profumo]

Hi gang, I am a standup. I don't particularly want to breach my anonymity by posting my stuff, but maybe I should? I've been on very minor TV and that.

As long as you're not on the otf blacklist

[irony towers]

Tonight I saw Matt Green at a small venue in Cambridge, having liked his stuff on Twitter. All I have as a yardstick for live comedy is Dave Gorman and Rachel Parris in a much bigger setting, so I don't pretend this review is authoritative.

It prompted more wry chuckles than belly-laughs, though clearly there were points where he expected a fuller reaction. He did the first half in character as a Tory MP, with some sharp ad libs as he interacted with members of the audience. Most of the second half was self-referential, centred around 'a funny thing happened' moments: amiable rather than cutting-edge.

Favourite bits: "Caroline Lucas - she's like an old Greta Thunberg. Although if Greta Thunberg gets old, she'll have lost the argument."

"Brexit is like caviare: expensive and an acquired taste. Those who love it really love it. And most of them are Russians."

[Toby Gymshorts]

Bill Bailey was absolutely fantastic. The usual musical whimsy topped off by an utterly absurd joke about Lionel Richie in a pub, after having a skip licence turned down.

[Jobi1]

First comedy show of the year last night – Fiona Allen of Smack the Pony and assorted other telly fame. Support was from Hull lass Louise Atkinson, who has only gone full-time in comedy in the last six months – she was excellent, definitely one to keep an eye on.

Fiona Allen was an interesting one. For all her decades in comedy and other performance, this tour is actually her first ever foray into stand-up, and I thought it kind of showed in places. She started with a bit about how difficult it is to find parking spaces – which I assume was straight from stand-up 101: start with something basically relatable – which was all a bit obvious and not exactly side-splittingly funny, and had us slightly worried as to what the quality of the full set was going to be like. But then she went from that pretty much straight into a whole bit about encounters with Rolf Harris while out dog-walking, which almost had people falling off their seats laughing. The rest of the set was pretty good, some real high points, but also a few lulls, the kinds which get ironed out you imagine after several years on the circuit. Her delivery was very good, as you'd expect from such an experienced performer, and some really great timing too. Hope she keeps at it, as with a bit more experience of the medium she could be absolutely amazing.

[Ray de Galles]

I don't think I've ever contributed to this thread before regarding my occasional visits to live comedy.

I bookended last weekend with two shows in the suburbs. The first was a St David's Day visit to Rob Brydon's 'Night of Songs and Laughter' in Kingston's Rose Theatre which was, as it sounds, a deliberately light entertainment style set of comedy interspersed with songs - both of which dealt with his early years performing from school productions up to Marion & Geoff.

I'd seen Brydon do a straight comedy set before at the Grand Pavilion in our mutual home town of Porthcawl and he's a very sharp raconteur who deliberately cuts against the format with some pretty withering material about the age and decrepitude of his audience and a self-deprecating attitude about his own life & career. Most of the songs worked really well (it helps they were from musicals I like or originally by performers such as Elvis and Tom Jones) though it got a bit carioci at one point. A very enjoyable funny night though.

On Monday I saw Miles Jupp's 'On I Bang' tour at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. I'm a real fan of pretty much all of Jupp's work and have seen him multiple times before in differing comedy, acting and presenting gigs but this was probably the best show overall. It's mainly about his discovery that he had a benign tumour on his brain after suffering a massive seizure on a TV set and his treatment and recovery. Now, that doesn't sound like the most promising comedic starting point but the show is hysterical despite the seriousness of the subject matter.

I know estwhile OTFer Lucy Waterman was Jupp's writer/writing partner for much of his career and would be interested in if he's involved with this show as it's a triumph.

[Jobi1]

Bit of a strange one tonight – Belfast boy and social media sensation(?) Vittorio Angelone. For about 90% it was great, some real belly laughs, and also some really important and intelligent bits about male mental health and related things. However, the final 10%... hmm. He does have a bit of a reputation for going a little close to the bone, and the end portion of the set was about that, although I don't think anything throughout the rest of the set had been particularly 'edgy'. He had a bit of a pop at deliberately offensive comedians who hide behind the free speech 'It's not my fault you can't take a joke' thing, but then used that as a way into a bit about (sigh) gender identity that wasn't particularly funny and in fact contained one joke that was actually just outright mean. It was a real shame as the rest of the show had been great, but that end section really spoilt it for me – as the husband said after, it was like he'd written a well-rounded and genuinely good show but then realised he was a few minutes short of the full hour, so just tagged this pretty much unrelated (and unfunny) bit on the end.

Angelone seems like a decent guy, intelligent and sensitive, so why on earth he went for that final section is somewhat unfathomable. Don't know what the motivation or intention behind it was, but to me, whether unintended or not, he more or less put himself into that category of the tedious shock comics. What a pity.

[Jobi1]

A much bigger show than last week's tonight – Sarah Millican at "Connexin Live", as absolutely nobody refers to the arena in Hull despite that being its official name at the moment.

Support was from Hayley Ellis, who was absolutely brilliant, had the crowd absolutely howling in places. The highlight was a moment when she was doing a bit on wanting to be married but still not being, and with impossibly perfect timing, a single, solitary piece of confetti left over from a gig a few nights ago dislodged from the rafters high above the stage and fluttered down painfully slowly, landing next to her. Wonderful.

And then Sarah... ah I dunno. I think she's a fantastic person, does a lot of good things – on this tour she's holding bucket collections for Samaritans, and ensuring the funds go to the local branch – and she is a decent comic. However, I do rather feel like the act is getting a bit tired now. Practically every gag in the entire show somehow manages to feature genitalia (mainly her own), and quite honestly after a while it actually just gets a bit repetitive and predictable. We definitely didn't feel like tonight was as funny as the last time we saw her a few years ago, and I suspect part of that is down to it just not being that different. But the fact she's still selling out two nights at the arena suggests there's still a big audience for it. I do really like her, but would I go to see her again next time she tours? Sadly, I'm not sure I would.

[Jah Womble]

‘My vagina’ has been a continuous trope with British female comics for at least four decades now.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I saw her at the RVT years ago on the "Sarah Millican's Not Nice" tour and she was fantastic. The night itself was memorable for other reasons, however.