Review by Mark Rough
The mighty Tobester was awesome tonight,
his ire at getting milk tokens and the force of his middle class angst was a joy to behold and a
lesson to all professional Northerners out there. Bit of a late start due to M62 difficulties (note to
comics: get to the venue ON TIME, it's not THAT difficult).
Danny Deegan was the suprise guest due to said late comics, and he was very good.
His mic technique is still crap but he had some cracking stories, and really got the room going. The opening
stuff about his grandfather wasn't worth the lame gags that followed though. Still a joy to watch.
Next up, hotfooting it straight onto stage from his car, was Neil Magee.
He certainly benefited from not having time for nerves as he tore straight into a gag-filled energetic set, the best I've ever seen him do. The royal family stuff, whilst not the most original premise in the world was lovely to listen to. He, like all the comics on the night, went on for maybe two or three minutes longer than they should've. A treat.
As I had the best standing position in the house me and Dave Twentyman's mum didn't do the comedy schmoozing stuff
at the back, we stayed where we were and I drank a bit too much of that lovely export Heineken. Toby came back on
with some delightful ranting (I could watch him all night) and introduced a new (to Malarkey's anyway) act from the
North East via the east coast of Scotland, John Scott.
Now I'd seen John before, knew he had "something" but I wasn't prepared for how he dominated the stage and
had the room bouncing. The gag about the spunk in the eye would have done Spider proud. I've booked him for
my gigs and now I'm a committed fan.
Next up was Dominic Woodward.
Great stage presence, waffles a bit but often hits the mark. My problem with Dominic is, where does he go next? He's obviously headline material but he doesn't seem to know his own style yet; is he a gagster? story teller? And the deaf/blind stuff was awful. The next step for Dominic is a big one, I hope he chooses his path well 'cos he's got a great talent.
Anvil Springstien was headlining in what
was, unbelievably, his Malarkey debut.
Almost 20 years on the circuit showed, his professionalism shone through, despite the audience being way too young to get his reference points. He is a genius and even on a night when that genius wasn't totally recognised the room still loved him. For some reason as a pre-encore he tacked on some "political" stuff about Dubya and the war that seemed totally out of step with the stuff he's done earlier and it seemed forced and as though he was pandering to the student audience; he didn't have to, they enjoyed him anyway.
So after a couple more beers and marvelling at Mick Ferry's new hair we toddled off into the sunset listening to The Style Council on Mrs Twentyman's new car sound system... oh, and I went to bed at 4am.