Review by Stewart Spaull and Chris Judge.
Stewart: The Manchester comedy scene is booming. This is evident from not only the sheer number of gigs springing up - both in the city and its various satellite towns - like weeds in a recently-deceased elderly lady’s garden, but also by the pool of talent from which the promoter may pick his or her line-up for a certain night. A glance at any listings page will leave the comedy club-goer boggle-eyed, confronted as he or she is with the names of local open/support talent of the highest quality sharing the bill with experienced acts, of whom many have performed in prestigious venues worldwide.
If any historian in decades to come were to be set the task of writing about a night to epitomize why, in the early part of the twenty-first century, Manchester had the best to offer, then that historian might reasonably analyse the events that took place on Tuesday 17th August, 2004, in a small pub in Fallowfield.
Stewart: The doors opened to a steady stream of punters: some regular; others, not so. Once the seats (and much standing room) had been filled, club promoter and resident MC Toby Hadoke took to the stage, to resounding applause. Hadoke, with seven years of club-running behind him, has attained mastery in interacting with the audience. Not only that, he uses the stage as a platform to vent his anger and frustration about everyday life through unfailingly well-crafted, well-timed riffs. Unsurprisingly, the invariable response is laughter - and lots of it. Tonight was no exception, as Hadoke ran through the joys of fatherhood for the second time, providing, as I remember, wonderful descriptions of the female form (his wife’s) at various stages of pregnancy. As a medical school drop-out, I think he could clean up doing voice-overs for educational packages for anatomy lectures.
Chris: As warm and welcoming as ever and two steps ahead. Showed everyone how it's done with a barrage of new material based upon his first fortnight of fatherhood as well as fresh topical stuff about Blunkett’s affair. Also veered off into a couple of bizarre imaginary dialogues (one with his other personality and one with the microphone) that appeared to teeter on insanity’s edge. Result - uproar.
Stewart: Having whipped the audience into a frenzy of laughter (after perhaps the shortest bit of compering I’ve ever seen him do), Hadoke introduced the first act - a dapper young gentleman called Okse. Brummie Okse is half-Chinese and did some excellent impressions of his Oriental mum (including a magnificent pun about small bear-shaped sweets). It was several cuts above the usual "don’t mums say wacky things!" material, as peddled by lesser exponents of the art form. Okse has been practising comedy only since late last year; upon realizing this, one might reasonably be astonished at his skill. It’s a testament to the hours he has invested to learn his craft, including several months as resident MC at his own gig in the West Midlands.
Chris: Okse has probably had his name mispelt or mispronounced more times than he’s heard the phrase ‘Sore finger’ and was referred to in the Metro as ‘Oxney’. He immediately established a rapport, beginning with a couple of belters about his half-Chinese roots and keeping the audience on its toes with a full blown rant about gay hobbits. Got the response he deserved.
Stewart: The next act was another comedian from Birmingham: Ryan Gough. From the outset, the audience member has no doubt as to the presence of this man, with his standing six-four and weighing nineteen stone. Gough, whose voice (rather high pitched and betraying the personality of a thoroughly lovely bloke) ran through the trials and tribulations of being a jobbing ‘extra’ on various TV shows and working on (and being dismissed from) local radio stations. Having managed a call centre, he also has an amazing store of English STD codes, which he throws out to the audience as a party trick par excellence. Despite some technical problems with a temperamental microphone, Gough had a good reception and walked off to tremendous applause.
Chris: Two minutes of self deprecation notching the old "Don’t I look like someone famous" routine to an unprecedented level. Also included a display of worryingly accurate telephone code memory recall and earned some cheers with his revelation about why he’ll never work in Melton Mowbray again. Well crafted.
Stewart: The next act was Kate Ward. The best way to describe her would be ‘relentless swearing meets Alan Bennett’. Ward delivered a finely-crafted monologue, which was received fairly well by the audience, but not quite as well as I’ve seen before (for example, at the Picnic Preview a few weeks back) - my own perception of Ward’s demeanour that night is that she was a tad nervous. No need to be, Kate! As tales of life in Halifax with a paedophilic grandfather and a miserable friend go, it’s superb. Excellent use of swearing, as well.
Chris: Not the best of nights for the filthy silksayer. Her monologue wasn’t as accentuated with the pointed delivery as she usually does. The first couple of minutes consisted entirely of set up and didn’t hit the mark so well. Still wasn’t to the detriment of the routine though and managed to garner some laughs with the drop in gags.
THE UNBROADCASTABLE RADIO SHOW
Stewart: After Kate, local rising star
John Warburton joined
Toby Hadoke for a run-through of a
sketch for the following Sunday’s Unbroadcastable Radio Show. This was a great contrast to
Kate’s laid-back delivery. With Warburton playing straight man as a chat-show host character, Hadoke
launched into as frenzied an attack on celebrity (in this case, Linda Barker) as I have ever had the
pleasure to witness. Even better, he did it as Davros. I remember being glad that there was a doctor
at our table - I thought he was going to have an aneurysm. The climax of his rant drew a massiveround of applause from the crowd as Warburton (himself an extremely funny act) held up his
metaphorical hands in mock astonishment.
Chris: Toby was then joined by John Warburton for a preview sketch from the Unbroadcastable
Radio Show. An extremely laugh-out-loud piece about Linda Barker’s new agent, Davros, which went
down a storm with the crowd. Afterwards, Chris Brooker
and Mike Landers came on and gave Toby
some congratulations presents and he got a standing ovation, all accepted by Toby with trademark humility.
Stewart: After a much-needed break, we were treated to two headliners from both North American countries, the first being USA girl Sabrina Matthews. Matthews was impressive when I last saw her about a year or so ago and I was extremely looking forward to seeing her again. She went through a lot of material about her experience as a lesbian, but rather than trotting out obvious dyke jokes, she delivered some exquisite routines about others’ (mis)perceptions of her sexuality and lifestyle. There was some great original material about George W. Bush as well. Later, Matthews went down a slightly different route, by handing cards - on which she had sketched ideas - to the audience. It was a little bit like pick ‘n’ mix. Some might suggest that this is merely lazy, but it worked well. My particular favourite was the routine about the women’s festival - the material was excellent, but her mock-received pronunciation of ‘land’ drew huge laughs.
Chris: There’s something irresistible about hearing North West locations delivered in a
foreign accent. Sabrina made an impact including sympathy for bus drivers and not-so much sympathy
for her odious leader Georgey boy explaining exactly why she wouldn’t sign a UK petition to keep him
out of Britain (as this would mean negating the US petition she’d signed to keep him out of the US
when he visited us here). She then moved on to some pick ‘n’ mix (although some hit ‘n’ miss) comedy
allowing the audience to choose her routines for her via some cards she’d made up. Particularly
outstanding was her bit about refusing to attend a celebration of periods. She wasn’t entirely to my
taste but the audience disagreed.
Stewart: Then came the second headliner - this time a Canadian - Stewart Francis. It’s no secret on the local circuit that Stewart Francis is my favourite comedian of all time, so please feel free to read this paragraph with writer’s bias in mind. Francis came on stage and immediately started delivering a stream of hilarious one-liners. All his material - ranging from out-and-out puerile filth to unbelievably intelligent subtlety - is excellently crafted. But Francis adds his capacity for facial expressions to the mix, not to mention his facility for impressions. Incorporate masterful timing and delivery that can only be acquired through selling one’s soul to the Devil at a Mississippi crossroads, and you have all the ingredients that make this man the most hilarious person to walk the Earth. The man is, in my opinion, better than Steven Wright (considered the King of the One-Liners). I fail to see how anyone cannot laugh at gags such as: "My parents caught me masturbating. I was so shocked, I nearly dropped their wedding picture." One-liner master Francis’s set was a fitting end to perhaps the best night of comedy this year - certainly, the best night of comedy I’ve ever seen. Many comedians go to certain gigs and think, "I wish I’d been on the bill." This was one of those nights: a night upon which took place an event that deserves to be accorded the same status as other artistic events of extreme beauty and significance, such as - to use two examples from the jazz world - the Bill Evans Trio’s Village Vanguard sessions of June 1961 and Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool.
Chris: I came on a recommendation which turned out to be more than correct. Cerebral genius with his head screwed off. It’s like being on the end of a well deserved comedy kicking with gag after gag winding you. His style is that of the one line and I found it sometimes hard to keep up causing a double helping of laughter seconds later. It would be pretty easy to use the format as a get out clause if a gag didn’t hit the mark but any lines that weren’t received as intended on the first telling received a quick makeover and were delivered over in equally hilarious mini explanations. It wasn’t just the telling that shone through it was the showing with one gag in particular that didn’t even need wording. Flowing effortlessly through Freud to Connery he was indeed a spot on headliner.
