"Cockles for sale!"
A top quality night for the most part, with two excellent headliners. Kicking off the night and
making his XS Malarkey debut was Rick
Kiesewetter.
Rick opened up with a cockles gag which, given his Oriental appearance, worked well. Strangely enough it got him carded off at the Gong Show at the Comedy Store, proving that Malarkey punters can deal with near-the-knuckle material. Rick informed the audience of his Japanese / Italian / German / American / Mancunian upbringing - a combination that has provided him with a fair bit of material. Rick's stage manner was quite laid back, very confident, and very slick, with some cracking punchlines that got the show off to a good start. It'd be interesting to hear more of Rick's material as I think he was just starting to get into his stride when his time was up.
Next on was a comic performer who'd not played Malarkey's in quite a while, Lavinia Murray.
Lavinia is battiness personified and this particular occasion proved no different. She went on as Bjork (not sure if Bjork ever wore a blue wig) and went into a slightly surreal monologue. It's always nice to have something a bit different at Malarkey's, but at the end of the day it is a comedy club, and the laughs weren't exactly appearing in droves. I think Lavinia needs to project a bit more, as I was struggling to hear. The main problem was that it went on too long - five minutes would be a welcome change, but the audience started to shuffle uncomfortably. Fair play to her for experimenting and trying something different; sadly this time it didn't quite pay off.
Next came a debut from Keith Barron (sadly not the one from Duty Free).
Much of Keith's material comprised of getting old (mid-thirties) and desperately trying to be "down with the kids" by understanding their language. Some of the gags were pretty good but I think the delivery could have had a bit more oomph (Roger Monkhouse does material about getting old and delivering it with energy and gusto doesn't affect the style of material). That said, the crowd liked it (despite being mainly whippersnappers) and he went off to a decent round of applause.
The first of the two headliners tonight was Mr Showbiz himself,
Sol Bernstein.
Character act Sol played the part of Jewish Pensioner to perfection, with some choice Jewish phrases interspersed throughout the set and an accent which was flawless. There were plenty of gags and stories from throughout his showbiz career (including playing old folks' homes - you get a new audience every year). Sol oozed charisma on stage and got some great laughs from the crowd. I thought Stewart Spaull was going to have some kind of spasm - it's the first time I've ever seen someone actually roar laughing. Good work, Sol!
Second of the two headliners was the explosive
Chris Lynam.
Chris did all the classic Lynam things on stage - see other reviews of Chris as I'd just be repeating myself. But what he never fails to do is make me laugh, even though I've seen him many times before. See the pictures below for some of Chris' exploits - ending with his arse-based firework finale.
Spider.
