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.
.jpg)
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 |
No comments:
Post a Comment