Be Excellent To Each Other

Ivybridge, Devon...

Malc

Tiverton is an hour down the road, according to Google.

Monday July 6th.

Ian Cognito
Chris Lynam
MC Craig Campbell
£10.

Cogs is one of my all time favourites. Shouty and angry, really clever one minute and then dark and evil the next.

Chris Lynam has been going for years. Very funny, with a finale that cannot be missed.

I gigged with Craig Campbell at the Comedy Store, wonderfully laconic Canadian.

All three are Store quality headliners. 10 quid is a complete bargain.

Friday 26th June
Ivybridge Watermark
PATRICK MONAHAN - "My Kind of People"

Very funny Iranian/Irishman. ("Which makes it a bugger to get through Customs").

July 3rd, Plymouth Pavilions - Russell Howard

More Here. I started out the same time as Dave Twentyman. He's pretty damned good these days.

If you know of one near Chester, I'd be very grateful. I'm quite eager to see some comedy live, having never done it before, but I'm not aware of anywhere near here. Granted, I've barely looked.



I like Mcintyre. He's exactly the sort of person I'd usually find extremely annoying, but he hits my funny bone brilliantly well. Rhod Gilbert, too.

Ben Norris is great.

Ian Cognito can be screamingly funny, but is prone to being a little temperamental, and I think I've seen him too many times now so he doesn't have quite the impact he used to.

Yes, going to see comedy live is much better than watching it on telly. The whole audience feeds off the laughter of everyone else - it's infectious, after all.

The first time I saw Cog (About 10 years ago) - he walked on stage, silent for a minute then shouted (without Mic) 'Doesn't Posh spice just have a face you want to rape, then slap to teach the cunt a lesson?'

Not of itself screamingly funny, but throw it out in the Glastonbury Cabaret tent on a lazy sunday afternoon, waking up the guys reading their guardian and watch their reaction, amazingly so. Second time, not so funny. And he hasnt actualy changed his act in 5 years.

Shame Alexanders has stopped. Good gig, that.

Crewe M Club has a superb bill on the 26th June. Justin Moorhouse, Roger Monkhouse and Silky is worth 9 quid of anyones money.

In Liverpool, try Liverpool Comedy Central at Baby Blue at the Albert Dock. This Tuesday, Reginald D Hunter (£8). Friday/Saturday is Caimh McDonnell and Jonathan Mayor.

Liverpool Royal Court has Brendan Riley and Neil Fitzmaurice.

Cogs has what is widely acknowledged to be the all time greatest opening line in XS Malarkey history.

Before introducing Cognito on stage, the compere, Toby Hadoke, was chatting to a guy in the audience. To paraphrase

"Haven't seen you for a while."
"No, er, haven't been for a few weeks"
"And you normally have this fit bird with you."
"She's not coming"
"Dumped you, eh?"
"Er.. no."
"You dumped her? Brave man."
"Er.. no."
"Where is she then?"
"Er... she died."
"What?"
"She died..."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Shit... er... well.. err.. sorry to hear about that...er.."

Toby then recovers the crowd a bit. And then introduces Cognito, who strides up to the stage and doesn't bother with the microphone.

"I'm sorry to hear about your girlfriend, mate."
"That's OK."
"But thats what happens when you try to steal my pint."

I remember that pub before it became XS... it was my local!

*sobs*

While I agree that you're more likely to laugh at a comedy gig than telly, I reckon it's more a demand characteristic thing. You expect you'll laugh, so you do (to a greater extent than the context of watching TV).

Saw Reginald D. Hunter over the weekend and man alive is he a big man. Bladdy hell. But yeah, funny. Great delivery. It's just a shame he seems to have been saving his new jokes for Edinburgh: the set on Friday was largely the same as his set at the Playhouse in December.

Really want to see Rhod Gilbert.

Michael McIntyre
Jimmy Carr

Indeed. That would be incredibly local for me, and easy enough to turn up on a whim. Crewe and Liverpool are a decent distance away, but still possible with a bit of planning each time. Cheers, chap.

Tim Vine, though he isn't to everyones tastes. He's ggot the world record for most gags in a minute. Really quick silly one liners.
Ross noble is another big fav of mine, more rambling nonsense than actual gags
George Carlins Seven words you can't say on TV sketch
Sean Locke
Alun Cochrane
Glen Woole
Woody Bop Muddy, if there is anything on you tube for him, watch it. a very unique act.
the mighty boosh

There should be a special act of parliament passed to stop Tim Vine ever talking ever again. His jokes are the sort of thing that you had in a big bog-paper book when you were seven.

Glen Woole is very good, but I've seen him 3 times in 8 years and the act has been exactly the same every time.

Sean Locke is very funny indeed.



Get out.

I love Eddie Izzard and I don't think he is too outrageous if there are youngsters around although I could be totally wrong about that. I also really like Michael Mcintyre and Dylan Moran. Of course there is always the brilliant Billy Connelly but he swears almost as much as Gordon Ramsay.

I like Sean Locke on 8 out of ten cats (is it him who's on that? yeah?) but I havent seen any of his stand up.

I love the Mighty Boosh. Series 3 was quite disappointing though.

Yeah, Dylan Moran is great, although I think I preferred his stuff about ten years ago. He's gone off the boil somewhat.

I agree with that, his most recent DVD wasn't as great. Although my little sister saw him live last year and said he was brilliant. I wish they made more Black Books.

The bookshop owner in that lives in the same building as me.

Who, Dylan Moran?

That'll be Dylan Moran, then.

Is it Dimrill?

Yes.

i saw the Mighty Boosh at Derby Uni SU back in 98. Before the TV shows they were actually really original.

Told.

I might at some point try and steal your life. If it means I get your house in London, plus your bank account, but minus the job. Basically so as I can be a bum in London.

Grim.. lives in a bookshop?

Jam jam jam… bleurgh!

Tim Vine is excellent.

He wears down your defences and then nails you with pun after pun after pun.

"I jumped in a taxi and said 'King Arthurs Close'. The driver said 'Don't worry, I'll lose him at the lights."

I'm sorry, but that is very good.

I like puns as much as the next man (possibly more), but I couldn't withstand a barrage of them like that.

You get machine gunned by them. You can't help it. That is how it works.

Good or not, you can't do it for 45 minutes and expect people to retain the slightest interest. You can't do it for 10 minutes and expect people to retain the slightest interest.

It could very well be different if I saw him live, as we've already discussed. I find him way too relentless to be funny on TV.

I have a great amount of respect, mind, even for his sheer ability to remember all those jokes and execute them second after second without pause. That's some skill, just not for me.

"I had dinner the other night with Garry Kasparov. There was a nice checked tablecloth. I asked him to pass me the salt... it took him an hour!"

"Exit signs... they're on the way out."

"Did you know that all male tennis players are witches? I know, take Goran... Even-he's-a-witch!"

That third one is my favourite joke of all time.

Tim Vine is my guilty pleasure. His relentless jokes make me giggle a lot. I had a stand-up DVD of his, and it wasn't as good over a long period (at least not via the remove on TV), but there were so many great little jokes.

He's the only person I've seen live to suffer a >60% walkout rate. And not at a free gig, either.

Have you ever been to Up The Creek on a sunday night? I loves the nights when we boo the lucky dips before they get to the stage.

No, I haven't. I should go there more often, really.

We should organise a big outing to there some time soon. Always a good laugh, if only to stare in wonder at how bad some of the lucky dips are, and then mercilessly heckle them to death. I love the UTC crowd on Sundays. They'll generally laugh like drains at funny people, and tolerat the mediocre, but they absolutely murder terrible people.

The best night I ever had at the creek was the time curiosity first took me there. One of the amateur comedians (the lucky dips) came on, and Curio had seen him a few weeks before and he had been heckled off. We were shedded and laid into him the second he started the Worst Stand Up Act Ever. I think he lasted 15 seconds before he went off crying after Curiosity asked if he could do the splits.

I'm less impressed about the night we went there so drunk, heckled mark Watson repeatedly by shouting 'Brilliant' everytime he said it (often), and then fell off my chair in front of the stage during Russell howard - he gave me a look of abject pity and decided that taking the piss was too easy.

I watched Mcintyre's Roadshow in Manchester last night, featuring Sarah Millican as the second in the lineup. Man, her voice is so incredibly dull and monotonous, yet constantly high-pitched and Geordie. I nearly fell asleep watching her. She wasn't funny, either.

She is one of the (very) few female stand ups that I have seen live, and enjoyed. I dont know why, because her middle aged singleton line isn't something I like, unless it is coming from the sweet sweet lips of Lucy Porter.

I also like the blonde girl, Holly someone or other.

Be warned. We always sit at the front.

Why is everyone raving about Sarah Silverman at the moment? She's terrible.

Sarah Silverman is a media push though. Much like Mcintyre. If the media ever tell me a stand up is funny, its a fair bet that I don't agree.

I would, though.

(Silverman, not the fella)

Really? I think she's got a horse face.

Sarah turned in a comparatively poor performance, I thought - though she has only been going a couple of years so that was probably her biggest gig to date. Although advertised as "new" comedians, Bishop, Ferry and Manford have been going for a decade or more.

Lucy Porter is rubbish, and like Sarah Silverman, simply uses looking good as a cover for shock jokes and fuck all else.

He was very funny, I thought. Hadn't heard of him before, and was pleasantly surprised. Dealt with the heckler very well, too.

FTFY by removing unneccesary and incorrect words.

Silverman was that one who put on a 45 minute concert in That London and got booed because it was too short, isn't she? She was probably expecting at least 3 commercial breaks.

iirc, it was a gig of 'new material' which cost about £50 a head, and turned out to be a recitation of her DVD that had been out for quite some time.