Electric Boys, Classic Grand, Glasgow. Saturday 7th June 2025

A bonus gig tonight after one of Bob's mates informed him there were comp tickets at the door if he wanted them.

I'd never heard of either of the acts, but went along prepared to be impressed. The venue was small, the attendance smaller (certainly for the support act), and my head was still rejoicing in the afternoon's comedy show spent watching Elf Lyons. My imagination was firing on all cylinders as I imagined what her next show would be like, having seen a rough teaser preview.

I spent longer jotting down notes about that show than watching the one I was at, so this review is brief.

The Spangles - punk, like Green Day or Weezer.

Electric Boys - funky.

Both looked old, but the music was good. It takes a particular sensibility to keep going, plugging away night after night to small audiences, playing the music you created, hoping to build an audience. So, hats off to them for that.

Setlist?

Ticket Price: Free.

The Spangles

Merch table

Electric Boys

 

Elf Lyons "Horses" The Stand, Glasgow. Saturday 7th June, 2025.

I first saw this show at last year's Edinburgh Fringe. It blew me away - the best show I'd seen at the festival. When the tour was announced, I couldn't make the Scottish dates because I was already booked elsewhere: Jarlath on Friday and Billy Joel on Saturday. Then, Billy Joel rescheduled (and later cancelled) his date, which freed me up to attend.

As it was an afternoon performance, with doors opening at 3 pm and the show starting at 4 pm, running until 5:40 pm, I decided to drive to Ibrox and catch the subway to Kelvinbridge. I didn't have to collect anyone as my mate was busy and was going to make his own way there. The tube got busy when a hen group dressed as cowgirls (and boys) flooded in, on a pub crawl, stopping off at every station. They had tiny bottles of pink liquid, which they downed like shots. Their loud presence amused my fellow travellers, but I felt relieved when they got off. 

Isn't this a thing of black beauty?

I arrived at the venue so early that they hadn't even put out the chalk advertising board. There was no queue, just one other bloke leaning against a wall. The door at the foot of the stairs was open, so I went down to peek in, catching a glimpse of Elf walking away in costume, but it was apparent the audience hadn't gone in early. The table for checking off the ticket holders had been moved to the other end of the corridor.

I headed back upstairs.

A young couple arrived and saw the pair of us standing, and still decided to head down. They disappeared inside, so I figured they were staff. Only they weren't. They came back out laughing, checking their watches, and then disappeared off to the pub. (They returned closer to showtime, by which time only a few tables remained. They ended up sitting beside the wall at the side of the stage.) 

I ended up third in the queue when two ladies arrived and decided to stand at the top of the stairs. The other bloke, who had arrived much earlier than I had, didn't seem interested in joining us, remaining at the wall.  

At 3 pm, the door was opened, the doorstop put in place, and we were allowed in.

The room layout had been altered from its usual configuration. There were far fewer tables, with spacing between to create a corridor around the stage. I clicked on the reason, remembering the show's finale. However, it also suggested the show hadn't sold out. The staff had done a great job of making it look full.

I still have no idea what the letters perched on the floor were for

I spotted a staff member taking down Elf's posters, removing the dollops of blue tack from the corners, so I approached him, asking if I could have one. He said no problem, even going to the length of finding me an elastic band to secure it. We then chatted about when they were due to move to the new venue. He told me it would probably be in September: the room needs some work, including adjusting the stage height and building a false ceiling to keep the laughs in. I don't usually have the confidence to talk to strangers, but I felt comfortable as it was The Stand, my favourite comedy venue.  

When Bob arrived, I'd already got the drinks in. We chatted about whether to attend a gig later that night at the Classic Grand - his mate couldn't go and had offered him free tickets - and decided we would. I'd never heard of Electric Boys, nor The Spangles, but it was free, so why not?

I'd seen Susan Riddell earlier outside and wondered if she'd been asked to open for Elf. In my head, this didn't make sense. The nature of the performance required Elf to open the show. It turned out I was right. Susan was there as a punter, sitting a few seats away from me at a Reserved table - the perks of being a comedian.

   

The show itself was superb, even on second viewing. I laughed out loud so much it put Jarlath's show to shame. So many moments to remember: the audience's enthusiatic involvement in the scene with the Trojan Horse; audience member Marion panicking, waving her hands in the air, as her invisible gun kept shooting Elf; Elf's performance as Medusa, Pegasus, and the Minotaur; the scene with the sweet girl riding Chubby ending up down the well. Elf's physicality is impressive, but her script is so good, packed with funny lines.

 

Afterwards, she treated us to a second half, a spot of stand-up as a preview of sorts for her next work in progress. She admitted she hadn't yet worked out how to link the bits, but we went with it. It's going to be a corker. Maybe it'll get her on Taskmaster and keep her agent happy. 

At the rock show afterwards, my brain kept distracting me with ideas for Elf's new show. I ended up jotting them down on my phone. When another punter approached me and asked if I was a reviewer, I stopped and put my phone away. I missed a lot of the gig. 

When I got home, I emailed Elf my ideas. I'm not expecting a reply, unless it's an injunction order, preventing me from contacting her further. For a short time, though, while still elated by her show, I could dream of collaborating with her. Wouldn't that be nice!

The weeds have formed a wreath outside The Stand.
It's the end of an era.
In just a few months, the lease will expire, and they will be forced to move.
(The comedy club, not the weeds - I imagine they'll flourish).

Ticket Price: 2 x £15 plus £1.60 booking fee = £31.60 from The Stand

Poster now framed.

Jarlath Regan - In Bits, Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow Friday 6th June, 2025

Since I retired, my inner Victor Meldrew has bloomed. Take tonight, for example. I had tickets for an accomplished Irish comedian, who was playing the Pavilion. We headed into Glasgow early but got stuck in traffic, most of which was probably heading to see Kylie at the Hydro. I'd have liked to see Kylie, but the tickets were expensive, and I'd already bought tickets for this fellow. That doesn't mean that my missing Kylie didn't fester deep within me.

We get a drink in Walkabout before the show. I need to pee, so I use the gents, only to find they have a bloody attendant sitting beside the sinks handing out sheets of toilet paper for us to dry our hands. I don't use any of the aftershaves or deodorant he's cluttered around the sinks, but still feel obliged to give him some change. I'd only intended to spend a penny, but it ended up costing me a pound (note to self, don't empty out your wallet of small change). 

The gig is fine. Jarlath performs two sets, with a brief interval, allowing the venue to sell snacks and alcohol. The chap next to me buys a pint and a mini tube of cheese and onion Pringles. Their whiff makes me boak. Seriously. It turns my stomach big time. I have to resort to sucking a Werthers Original to block out the noxious vapour. (Yes, I'm so old I carry Werthers now) I want to get back at him but my farts are silent but not deadly. As ineffective as my rage. 

The theatre is warm, despite not being full, so I feel a bit sleepy. Jarlath's style of comedy is conversational, with a touch of blarney. His material is predominantly Irish-centric, discussing the energy of an Irish Mammy and the beauty of an Irish Goodbye, among many topics. There aren't many huge laughs, but the humour is consistent. He's charming and funny, and I enjoyed his comedy. He might not have had the big production values of Kylie's show, but I bet she wasn't prepared to greet whoever wanted to meet him in the lobby afterwards. He had a queue waiting by the time we got out, and I doubt any were there to ask for a refund.

We headed back to where I'd parked the car. The police were having an issue with an obstreperous youth in a Celtic top, who signalled an incorrect football score to them with his middle fingers (in tonight's friendly, Scotland lost 3:1 to Iceland - I'm assuming the country, not the supermarket chain, but you never know). The youth drunkenly refused to walk on, despite being telt. We missed what happened next, as my wife doesn't enjoy such forms of public entertainment.  

Sauchiehall Street now has more benches packed along its pedestrian area than shops. Is this the City Council's new approach to addressing the homeless problem? With fewer shops and therefore fewer doorways, these benches may be intended to provide an alternative sleeping location for the homeless. If only they'd thought to give the benches a solid seat, the homeless could have slept under them to keep dry when it rained (which is usually a lot).

This message is on every bin.
People Make Sauchiehall Street... 
Answers on graffiti, please.

We return to my car to find this...

Mine is the grey car behind the BMW. I've erased his five-digit private number plate from the image because I'm sure it was his second choice, after C4UNT was unavailable. He'd boxed me in so well that it took me six turns to edge past him. Thank Ford for parking cameras and sensors. I was not best pleased for the remainder of my journey home. Another BMW cut me up on Renfrew Rd, overtaking from behind me despite me indicating I was changing lane. 

My long-suffering wife, who had thoroughly enjoyed the comedy, having a thing for the Irish accent, asked me, "What does it matter really?" 

I kept quiet. 

What I was thinking was, "It matters because they think they're better than me in their flashy, expensive, fast cars. They think they can drive all over me with impunity. And I know they can, because the only response I've got is a toot of the horn or a flash of my headlights, maybe a rude gesture directed at their rear view mirror. Big deal.

When we got home, the stress continued when Poppy, my puppy, got in on the act. My wife handed me my slippers, and before I could get my foot into the second one, Poppy ran off with it, hiding from me behind the sofa. I get no respect from anyone.

If only I'd gone to see Kylie, everything could have been so different. 

I should be so lucky.

Ticket Price: £32 x 2 plus £3.95 booking fee = £67.95 from Trafalgar Tickets

Nina Nesbitt "Clyde Chorus" at The Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow. Saturday 31st May 2025

Glasgow is celebrating 850 years with a series of events across the city, including this one at The Pearce Institute in Govan. Somewhat unusually, it was an afternoon show with daylight streaming through the hall's windows. Additionally, there was no alcohol available at the venue, which I found pleasantly refreshing, although it may not have been in keeping with Glasgow's historic culture.  

The doors opened at 3 pm, so I arrived a bit before that and joined the queue outside. The intermittent drizzly showers worsened whenever I took out my phone to read on the Kindle app, bubbles of raindrops interfering with the text on the screen. I put the phone away and kept my head down until it was time to go in. 

As you can see from the graphic above, each of the three artists was scheduled for thirty minutes of stage time. I didn't know this when I booked the ticket, but it wasn't worth getting annoyed, as the ticket price was so cheap. Thirty minutes of Nina Live for just over a tenner is still well worth it.

All the acts had British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters on stage with them during the performance, two women sharing the duties between them.

The first act, Ili (pronounced illy), sang songs about bad boyfriends and being tongue-tied. She's young, but her voice was great, despite having a viral infection (not a good time to be standing down the front). Afterwards, she joined the audience for selfies and chatted with her fans. I didn't bother. My asking for a selfie would have looked creepy.

Next up was Kerr Mercer, a Glasgow singer who has been performing for about two years and has built up quite a following despite not releasing any recordings on digital music platforms. He confessed that he had recently uploaded a teaser of his work to Spotify and had clocked up half a million streams in just two weeks. His style is trendy at the moment, soul-baring and mournful, playing slow songs with lyrics that his fans can recite back to him, even though I have difficulty making out the words. He was accompanied on guitar by his friend Adam Frame (at least, that's how it sounded). 

Kerr isn't really my cup of tea, as my Glasgow Gran would have said. Afterwards, he too greeted his fans, with a long line of girls queuing for that all-important selfie with him. Again, I didn't bother.

Then, we got Nina, dressed in a long skirt and a sleeveless black top. She played five songs for us, with plenty of chat in between. I recorded the entire set, but occasionally forgot to look at the screen, so I managed to trim off the top of her head from time to time. 

I was surprised by how sparse the crowd was. The venue can accommodate around 300 people, but only about a third of that number was present. When I first attempted to purchase a ticket, the website displayed 'Sold Out'. I thought I'd been lucky last week when I bought my ticket, thinking I'd snagged a late production release ticket. Obviously not. Given that she previously sold out The Old Fruitmarket, the low attendance must have been due to either poor publicity or the matinee timing. I doubt it was because people didn't want to miss the Doctor Who season finale. 

They missed an excellent performance, despite Nina complaining of a raspy throat. 

Setlist

Pages

Mansions

Parachute

Painkiller

I'm Coming Home

Nina didn't join the crowd after the show, as we were all ushered out of the hall so they could get ready for The Supernaturals' show at seven o'clock. I didn't even get a chance to nab a setlist from the stage as they were all removed by the crew. A few other Nina fans were also disappointed by this.

Never mind. It was still worth the trip to hear her wonderful voice. 

Ticket Price: £8.50 Plus £2.20 booking fee = £10.70 from TicketWeb.

Nick Mohammed is Mr Swallow in Show Pony, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 25th May, 2025

When this tour was announced, I decided against attending because I didn't find Mr Swallow's appearances on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown funny. Then, I was offered a free ticket (cheers, Bob). The week of the gig, when my wife heard the show included magic, she decided she wanted to go, too, so I had to buy her a ticket. I managed to find her a single seat with a good view in the Grand Circle.

In a neat quirk of fate, Liam Withnail was the support act, which explained his absence from the Comedy Roadshow lineup the night before. I knew little about him, but I was looking forward to seeing him.

The proximity of our seats to the stage (and the stairs to the stage) made me feel uncomfortable. I knew Mr Swallow would need assistants from the audience for his magic tricks, and, this close, I knew I wasn't safe from being the target of crowd work. The copious legroom did not redress this nervousness. My wife was most amused by the picture of our view (see above).

Fuck!

I couldn't even relax during the pre-show music or sustain a conversation, such were my nerves. My ticket-providing friend agreed he would take one for the team should the situation arise, fall on the proverbial sword prop, as it were. 

The show began with Mr Swallow, dressed casually in a cardigan, going over his professional history while getting the audience to mix up a Rubik's cube. He then asked for a volunteer, someone who had never completed the puzzle before, to come up onto the stage so he could help them achieve this goal. To make matters harder, the woman in question, let's call her Diana, would finish the puzzle facing the audience, with her hands behind her back. Bob spotted how the trick was achieved, thanks to his viewing angle, so close to the side of the stage.

Liam Withnail was a revelation. An Essex comedian and former teacher living in Glasgow, he owned the stage with a confident set about stopping drinking and the bad symptoms of his ulcerative colitis, finishing on a well-received joke about an experience at airport security. 

After the interval, Mr Swallow returned, this time in a gold-sequinned jacket, to tell us about his interview with the BB, ahem, television network about getting his own sitcom. His humour is silly but slick, detailed, and terribly funny. He uses the screen to visualise his points (age ratings on Lego, Bafta show press reviews), and he is never afraid to make Mr Swallow appear as a fool while also being clever, demonstrating deft physical skills and magic tricks.

As a character act, Mr Swallow is quite a revelation. He can tell the exact number of cards that have been cut from a deck by their weight. He can tell who is lying and telling the truth from their voice. He can flip up his shoe and catch it. 

The finale tied together the many disparate elements of the show to bring about a satisfying conclusion. His material might not work well in short form on TV, but it was wonderful to witness in person. Charming, witty, clever, and funny, a super evening's entertainment, I loved it.   

 

The Big Comedy Roadshow, Barrfields Theatre, Largs. Saturday 24th May 2025

When the best thing about a night out is the drive home, you know you've not had a good time.

I had such high hopes for this show. It featured a couple of established local acts, two others with high-profile TV experience, and a superb upcoming comedian. Even with Liam Withnail dropping out, Chris Forbes should have been a good replacement. 

A quick check of ticket availability the day before showed 50+ still available. Fifty tickets wouldn't be much of a gap, though, given the room capacity was 440. 

The portents were not good, though. When I arrived at the venue, I found plenty of parking spaces available. Inside, the front-of-house staff announced that the ticketed reserved seating had been suspended as they had had to rearrange the room into tables. The intention was to give the place a club vibe, but this was going to be difficult given the critically low sales. There were maybe only fifty punters in attendance.  

The staff wanted us to fill up the front trestle tables first, but we ignored that suggestion, leaving the latecomers and the Gen-Zs to sit there. The way the seats had been arranged perpendicularly to the stage felt too much like a work conference, with half the room sitting with their backs to the speaker, in this case, the comedian. It might work for bingo, but not for comedy.  

Chris Forbes kicked off the evening as host, conducting some low-key audience work to establish where people were from (local mainly, with a few from England and one from Wales). The interactions were warm but rarely comedic. I don't know if he used any prepared material before he brought on Raymond Mearns.

Raymond is an established comic who is more intelligent than he appears to be, not that it shows often. He ploughed through his material about young people not talking to one another, likely leading to an extinction-level crisis, despite the lukewarm reaction from the crowd. He did okay in the circumstances.

Desiree Burch was up next. The inaccuracies in her material killed my enjoyment of it: Pointless contestants cannot win only £800—the prize money starts at £1000. She should know this as she was Xander's sidekick for ten shows. She complained about how thick Blankety Blank contestants are, then told a story about this one girl who struggled to come up with a famous Scotsman, despite hints from the celebrities. The problem here was Rod "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" Stewart is not Scottish. So, who's the idiot? Her suggestion that the success of ABBA Voyage was due to the band being dead finished me off (not in a sex act way). She rescued it a bit at the end with her bald, bearded Greek boyfriend material, but it was too little, too late. I felt she was not gig-fit. She spoke fast but stumbled occasionally over the words. 

Jin Hao Li didn't have that problem. His delivery is deliberately slow. His material is brilliant, full of comical misdirection, so even though I was familiar with the routines and could recite the lines as he spoke them, I still enjoyed his performance. He giggled more than usual, which was odd for him, as he's usually so controlled. 

The headliner, Jayde Adams, died on her arse. Her act was flabby with very few jokes. Instead, she went on and on about being on Strictly (it was 2022), going viral and being ever so popular. She berated us for not laughing at her 'good' jokes, complained that she hadn't done much standup because she'd been too busy with her successful career, then read out a prepared speech about the patriarchy trying to control women with body shaming and that by owning her fatness, she had become immune to their powers. The best bit was the background music, the young lesbian from the Gen Z table played (Luke Skywalker's theme from Star Wars: A New Hope) to accompany the speech. 

I was especially disappointed in Jayde, because I'd heard she could be so good. 

The Gilded Balloon branded the previous tour as the Big Fab Comedy Show. They definitely were right to lose the Fab tonight.

Ticket Price  2 x £23 plus Booking Fee £3.58 = £49.58 from Ticket Source Ltd

The original tour graphic

The Book Of Mormon, King's Theatre, Glasgow Matinee Friday 23rd May 2025

 

I went into this show blind, and Hallelujah, I have now seen the light. This show totally dismissed any apprehension I had that touring productions were weaker than the West End runs. The choreography, acting, and singing were top-notch, the stagecraft smooth, and the humour appropriately vulgar. I won't forget General Butt Fucking Naked or Maggots in my Scrotum for a long time. Jeez, the main characters even had fulfilling story arcs. The script is so sharp. The audience loved one particular script adjustment for the Scottish run. Elder Cunningham, who had been comically misnaming Nabulungi throughout the show, called her Nicola Sturgeon, cheekily side-glancing at the audience. 

I wholeheartedly loved this musical. 

Ticket Price: £50 x 2 plus booking fee £3.95 = £103.95 from ATG Tickets

Mark Normand "Ya Don't Say" UK Tour, O2 Academy Glasgow Friday 16th May 2025

I could have been at Kylie tonight, but I went to see this guy instead. I'm not sure why an unfamiliar New York comedian took preference, but there you go.

The acoustics in the 02 Academy suck for comedians. The sound booms, killing any comic intimacy. Not that support act Doug Key required that, with his material mainly focusing on his sexual exploits and their consequences. He struggled to warm up the audience with jokes about the birth of his son, breastfeeding, lube and dildoes. I liked one gag in his routine concerning first-date sex with a porn star, a neat call back relating her sexual kink and her apartment, but the rest left me cold. I had no desire to buy one of his stickers after the show.

Before the show, I knew little about Mark Normand. I'd watched twenty minutes of his standup on YouTube and figured he knew his stuff. He had some great lines, making funny connections on relatable topics. The blurb compared him to Jerry Seinfeld, but he's not. Yes, his material is beautifully written and well delivered, but I don't see Jerry making as many jokes about religions, trans people, and women. Mark's not a shock comedian in the style of, say, the excellent Doug Stanhope, but he mines a vein of comedy that's on the safe side of that border. Things 'Ya Don't Say' sums him up well.  

His audience was predominantly young and male. My wife likened them to the Andrew Tate crowd, guffawing too loudly at the jokes about women, not comprehending they were spoken in jest. I noticed many of them had drunk a skinful before and during the show, not least because of the frequency with which they required the rest of the row to stand up to let them out to the toilet. The skinful also showed in other ways, such as their back fat bulging above the waist of their white t-shirts, with their slight beer bellies presenting like the signs of early pregnancy (I can say this as I'm from the demographic whose stomach gives the appearance of carrying twins, Ben and Jerry, thanks to a lifetime of sugar abuse - how I'm not dead is a miracle of modern medicine). I got a bit pissed off with so many of them holding up their cameras to snap pictures during the show. The staff did nothing to stop this, which was irritating. 

On the night, Mark did well to hold the Friday night crowd's attention, generating frequent laughs, but he ended oddly, stumbling around for jokes on recent topical subjects. As such, he didn't close strong, so when his support act returned to get the audience to cheer for him, it felt like Mark was being rescued. Not a good way to end the show.     

On balance, I would have preferred Kylie.   

Ticket Price: 2 Full Price Tickets  £37.50 x2 £75.00

Per Item Fees £5.10 (Service Charge Full Price Ticket) x2

£1.75 (Facility Charge Full Price Ticket) x2 £13.70

Order Processing Fees Handling Fee (£2.85) £2.85

Total £91.55 from Ticketmaster