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Blog News, reviews and cool stuff from the FestBuzz team.

Festbuzz Review: The Comedy Reserve

Posted by Jodi on August 20, 2009

What: The Com­edy Reserve
Where: Pleas­ance Dome
When: 8 — 31 August (not 18 and 25)
How Much: £7.50 — £8.50

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Doc Brown intro­duces a mish–mash of up-and-coming come­di­ans. Be warned — qual­ity varies considerably.”

In the­ory, The Com­edy Reserve is a great idea. Three up-and-coming come­di­ans share an hour-long show with a respected, but still rel­a­tively unknown comic per­form­ing com­pere duties. In prac­tice, how­ever, it’s some­thing alto­gether less than the sum of its parts. Doc Brown, London-based rap­per turned stand-up and brother to author Zadie Smith, cer­tainly per­forms the role of MC to the height of his con­sid­er­able abil­i­ties adding such much needed cohe­sive­ness to a bill of come­di­ans, each with an entirely dif­fer­ent con­cept of humour.

Jared Hardy is barely on stage before launch­ing into an excep­tion­ally self-deprecating rou­tine which, try as it might, can’t quite recover after the audi­ence loses con­fi­dence early on. Hardy claims to resem­ble “an emo Harry Pot­ter” but with his slight West Coun­try lilt, painfully scrawny frame and the admis­sion that he hails from Bris­tol, the char­ac­ter Sid from Skins is per­haps a more appro­pri­ate com­par­i­son. Like his small-screen coun­ter­part, Hardy appears ago­nis­ingly awk­ward and, while endear­ing in some small way, seems out of his depth in front of an Edin­burgh crowd.

Cana­dian comic Pat Burtscher (or “Pat Butcher!” as a lady in the next seat squealed with delight), by con­trast, seems excep­tion­ally sure of him­self though appears entirely unaware of the fact. Whether drug-induced or oth­er­wise, Burtscher spends the early part of his short set in a stu­por, only snap­ping out of it to bat­tle an errant mic stand. By the time he finally man­ages to attain some­thing vaguely resem­bling lucid­ity, he’s riff­ing off the sex­ual dif­fer­ences between men and women, end­ing in an out­ra­geous — and excru­ci­at­ing — mas­tur­ba­tion gag. Burtscher is cer­tainly an intense per­former but his dozey demeanour and crass pay­offs are some­thing of a let-down.

Final act Chris Stokes is a minor rev­e­la­tion after the pre­vi­ous two comics. Like Hardy, Stokes plays on themes of per­sonal dep­re­ca­tion and poor esteem but pos­sesses just enough self-assurance to pull it off. He is a decon­struc­tivist, play­ing on social mis­con­cep­tions and dis­man­tling them on stage. The pace is slow and mean­der­ing but there’s a sur­re­al­is­tic ele­ment that acts as a smoke screen, keep­ing the audi­ence dis­tracted while Stokes weaves addi­tional lay­ers into the fab­ric of a some­times thin ini­tial joke. His per­sonal life proves a rich source of mate­r­ial, as tales of his veg­an­ism and of liv­ing with his flat­mate are used as spring­boards for intro­duc­ing new con­cepts. It’s dif­fi­cult to see a rel­a­tively off­beat act like Chris Stokes truly going main­stream but the come­dian can cer­tainly expect to attract a cult fol­low­ing if this per­for­mance is any indication.

There are undoubt­edly laughs to be had at The Com­edy Reserve but with Doc Brown con­fined to his role as Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, it’s left to Chris Stokes to lift the show above the level set by Hardy and Burtscher. As it is, he can’t quite man­age it sin­gle–hand­edly and his com­plex, dead­pan rou­tine may prove some­thing of a turnoff for many. Was the ticket price for The Com­edy Reserve a cou­ple of pounds cheaper it might seem a more rea­son­able prospect but as it is, it’s hard not to come away with at least a slight sense of disappointment.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Jodi Mullen

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Festbuzz Review: Phil Nichol

Posted by Jodi on August 7, 2009

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Who: Phil Nichol
Where: The Stand Com­edy Club II
When: Fri 7 — Sun 30 Aug (not 17)
How Much: £10

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Cana­dian comic Phil Nichol turns manic lounge singer. Cash meets Sina­tra is a storm of tequila, swear­ing and song.”

Musi­cal com­edy is all the rage in Edin­burgh this year. Since David O’Doherty took last year’s If.comedy award at the Fringe for Let’s Com­edy, his whim­si­cal col­lec­tion of odd­ball songs, tapped out on a tiny key­board, other per­form­ers have re-invented them­selves as all-singing (and, more rarely, all danc­ing) com­edy acts. The Irish­man is a tough act to fol­low though. The last few years have seen the bar for tune-based com­edy raised to dizzy­ing new heights as comics like Bill Bai­ley and Doc Brown have pushed the medium far beyond the bound­aries of bawdy three-chord sin­ga­longs and trite lyri­cal parodies.

Enter Phil Nichol. The Cana­dian come­dian, a for­mer mem­ber of com­edy song­ster trio Corky and the Juice Pigs,  has aban­doned his now famil­iar stand-up rou­tine in favour of an out­ra­geous over-the-top musi­cal show at this year’s Fringe. A Dead­pan Poet Sings Quiet Songs Qui­etly sees Nichol take to the stage with slicked-back hair, a wide grin and a dap­per suit, acoustic gui­tar hang­ing from his shoul­der; think Johnny Cash meets Frank Sina­tra after a few tequi­las too many. He’s accom­pa­nied by a jazz pianist and a dou­ble bass player who add a care­fully cal­cu­lated air of pre­ten­tious­ness to the pro­ceed­ings, together with their finely-honed chops and back­ing vocals.

Despite the change in for­mat, Nichol’s trade­mark dead­pan humour has sur­vived the tran­si­tion to musi­cal com­edy fully intact. He’s witty and cut­ting, with absolutely impec­ca­ble deliv­ery, as unex­pected lyri­cal twists leave the audi­ence writhing in mirth. The songs them­selves form the back­bone of the show and direct audi­ence inter­ac­tion, while not entirely absent, is kept to a min­i­mum. Nichol remains in char­ac­ter through­out, a brood­ing, cyn­i­cal vet­eran of a thou­sand lounge per­for­mances, deter­mined to inflict his mis­ery upon the world. The sub­ject mat­ter ranges from darkly comic per­sonal dia­tribes to sur­pris­ingly inci­sive crit­i­cisms of PC cul­ture, all held together by the performer’s infec­tious inten­sity and ludi­crously foul mouth.

Gaps between songs are bridged with loosely-themed col­lec­tions of short, sharp one-liners which act as a pre­lude for Nichol’s next irrev­er­ent slice of poetry. If the quips seem hit and miss, the effect is surely delib­er­ate. Razor-sharp wit­ti­cisms induce gen­uine belly-laughs while some of the more low-brow mate­r­ial elic­its unsym­pa­thetic moans just as heart­felt. Nichol, how­ever, seems to thrive on the cheesi­ness of some of the more ropey gags. “A groan is as good as a laugh to me!” he glee­fully informs the audi­ence after an espe­cially hammy pun.

It’s clear that Nichol hasn’t quite ironed out all the creases in A Dead­pan Poet… but the show is brim­ming with comic poten­tial. The songs that make up the mid­dle sec­tion lack the inten­sity and imag­i­na­tion of the open­ing and clos­ing salvos and, despite the intended ironic uncouth­ness, too many of the one-liners are devoid of the sophis­ti­ca­tion an Edin­burgh audi­ence demands. Thank­fully, how­ever, the show’s end­ing and Nichol’s exhil­a­rat­ing stage pres­ence more than com­pen­sate for any short­com­ings in the rest of the material.

For a per­former who has been away from the musi­cal com­edy scene for so long — the Fringe is A Dead­pan Poet’s first out­ing in front of a live audi­ence — Phil Nichol acquits him­self admirably and, with a bit of spit and pol­ish as the fes­ti­val goes on, his lat­est show could eas­ily become one of the high­lights of the Fringe.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Jodi Mullen

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