Before the gig, we went for dinner at the Winged Ox part of the venue, having booked a table in advance. The food was very good and not overly expensive. No desserts, though, so my wife and I had to kill time with conversation, additional drinks and much-needed trips to the loo.
With fifteen minutes before the doors were due to open, we made our way outside to find no queue. There were a few people hanging about the inside door, so we waited there. Slowly, the corridor filled to the point that no one else could enter. It was then that a rather sniffy steward informed us we should be queuing outside. Everyone decanted to join the four already there. It was no biggie, but perhaps an information sign or a team member could have sorted this out earlier. We still got good seats in the fourth row with an excellent sightline to the comedian.
Monday nights are rarely good for comedy. The energy of the crowd can be low, so it needs a comedian at the top of their craft to make it work. I'd only ever seen Marc perform short routines online, so I was looking forward to seeing how good he was live.
First up was Susan Riddell in the support slot. She peddled her familiar twenty-minute set about dating apps and relationships. She did well despite the audience's seeming muted reaction. It was funny when she couldn't find the exit door from the stage after her set.
Headliner Marc, a Scottish comedian from Clydebank, has grown a large enough following to sell out the venue and add a second date at Blackfriars for the end of the Festival. He's also done well enough to have to pay tax on his earnings for the first time last year, he admits. He also comments on it being a Monday but hopes we still have a good time.
He was okay. There were no barnstorming routines, just funny jokes and observations, with perhaps a little too much reliance on the comic analogy. He covered topics like his desire to get on the property ladder, some bits on politics (with a nice Nicola Sturgeon joke), and some material about his family and what it means to be a man in today's society. Nothing overly deep, but still funny.
Perhaps not his finest hour, but it was a Monday.
Ticket Price: £12.50 x 2
Service Fee £5.12
Delivery Fee £2.00
Total Payment £32.12 from TicketWeb.
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