Liverpool Daily Post - Comedy Blog

Tried and tested: The Olympia Laughter Lounge

2008-12-02T11:14:56Z

AS long as you don't accidentally walk into the cage fighting night on the other side of the venue, the Grafton's Olympia Laughter Lounge is quite a giggle

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The Olympia is a mixture of the naffness of a bygone English era and the strangely comforting, like when I went to see Half Man Half Biscuit at the Blackpool Tower Lounge. It's spacy - enough for about 350 punters, but also pretty comfy, although when comics pick on the front row they tend to focus on the target and not the rest of the crowd, and it's hard for those near the back to feel included in the show.

The weekend just gone, opener Markus Birdman left us impressed - initially by way of his frightening resemblence to my companion's boyfriend - but his affable and confident set of solid material was a winner. Once a Liverpool regular (a Londoner, he once lived on Shiel Road) it's not often you see him up here these days. Saturday's set showed it's well worth the effort to seek him out.

Welshman Lloyd Langford had potential and a sweetly grumpy demeanour - as Welsh comics, and those who pretend to be Welsh comics, tend to adopt - but, perhaps unused to the size and set up of the venue, could have done with projecting a bit more.

Finally headliner Daliso Chapondra went down well - the London-based, Malawi-born and Canadian-raised comic had a natural effervescence that UK acts generally lack. By halfway through his act I'd drunk so much wine it had become quite hard to see, but if that's not a comedy club prerequisite I don't know what is. His gag about how he'd moved to England because BNP leaflets made it sound attractive was brilliant ("immigrants are taking all our jobs and our women? Well, that sounds good to me!").

Steve Gribbin headlines this Friday and Saturday. For more info see www.olympialaughterlounge.com.

A chat with Adrian Edmondson

2008-12-02T11:14:56Z

IF COMEDY is the new rock 'n' roll, then Adrian Edmondson sits at the top of the table as its original punk.

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The former analogy was a phrase coined during the heyday of Newman and Baddiel in the 1990s, and applied again in recent years to the madcap cool of the Mighty Boosh, but Edmondson has been punk, and punk by association, for the whole of his television career.

Breaking through as the Young Ones' token mohawked, V-flicking, jack booted anarchist Vyvyan, his obsession with all things "very metal" (as was studded into the back of his character's denim jacket) saw him survive membership of spoof Comic Strip band Bad News and the nihilism of Bottom to take things to their logical, grown up conclusion - playing an embarrassing dad who still thinks he's down with the kids, in this year's sitcom Teenage Kicks.

But knocking TV on the head for now - and that's only a taster of the credits to his name, obviously - he's getting to indulge himself in his second love of music. And how better for a former punk to keep kicking out the jams after youth has given way to experience? Why, some good old rowdy folk, of course.

As the frontman of Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds, the comic formerly known as Ade has ditched the safety pins through the nose for expensive grown up toys including the mandolin, the ukelele and the autoharp. But the punk spirit remains, and his band, including piper Troy Donockley, who also plays with gothic metal titans Nightwish, and Maartin Allcock, a former member of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull, perform a repertoire of 70s classics with a folk twist.

"Thrash folk!" he explains. "I've always liked this era of music, I grew up with punk and all that stuff. I have pre-Christmas drinks with chums and generally end up on Denmark Street in London where all the music shops are and I buy something inappropriate when I'm drunk. Last time, I bought a mandolin."

He was "messing about" with old pal and Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band-er Neil Innes (not a Bad Shepherds member) when suddenly things fell into place.

"It just got better and better. Everyone fell on board very quickly. The band is all punk covers and we do a bit of Kraftwerk and the Specials. Punk was the folk music of its day, they're very similar forms of music - very naive, three chords and you can go and play in a band. And it's the same kind of excitement for me, there's a visceral kind of passion to it."

Of course, it begs the obvious question - is it comedy or is it straight?

"It's difficult for me to take anything seriously, I just do it because it's fun. If the result is I can make a living, then fantastic," he says. "It's like a hobby. It reminds me of when I started out with Rik (Mayall), that was a hobby that turned into a job.

"It's not a comedy band. But there is some inherent comedy in punk. Johnny Rotten was very funny - 'we mean it, maaan' - that's a great laugh. A lot of punk has a wry humour. Because we're the Bad Shepherds - it's always good to start your band name with bad... Bad News, Bad Seeds - there's a few religious things too. We've re-written a couple of psalms."

It's hard to say whether Edmondson could be leading us down the garden path. The proof will be in the performance. The band comes to Liverpool on Sunday December 14 as the first guests of Baby Blue's new Live Lounge. Edmondson says he hopes that music can become his full-time occupation if things turn out well.

"This tour is a little try out to see if it's got legs," he says. "Most comics I know want to be musicians and the musicians want to be comics - everyone's in the wrong job. It's like when Rik and I first started out - a hobby that becomes a job, it feels exactly the same.

"The aim is to have a party every night, that's my goal. I've never had a plan. Everything in my career has been an accident. There's no masterplan, I just do whatever I fancy doing, if I can."

Live Lounge is a brand new live music night that aims to present an eclectic mix of live bands and acts of national and international status.

After kicking off with the Bad Shepherds, the Ben Waters Big Band drops in on December 16, The Blockheads follow on December 17, and the legendary soul act Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band play on December 21.

TICKETS for Live Lounge @ Baby Blue are booked through the Liverpool Echo Arena on the ACC Live Hotline on 0844 8000 410 or online at www.accliverpool.com.

A chat with Jason Manford

2008-11-28T18:45:54Z

"AH, the credit crunch. Try being in my job. Making people laugh who might be thinking they could have spent the money on their heating bill."

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Comedian and 8 Out of 10 Cats team captain Jason Manford is keeping it real.

"Luckily I forsaw this credit crunch thing. When they asked me how much I wanted tickets to be, I just thought the lowest they could be without making a loss. And I'm glad I did that now, because shows are selling out.

"I think people are always up for a laugh. It's a bit different to what else people normally do, going to the cinema or for a meal, or bowling - I don't know what people do. I haven't had a night off myself for three years."

It's hard to believe given his ever-growing profile, but this is actually his first ever solo UK tour. "My problem is I don't ever think that I'm either good enough or popular enough," he says, when asked what took so long.

"There's always a lot of people around telling you nice things, but you don't believe it because you don't want to look silly. I didn't want to book venues and not sell any tickets. But, I had just done 8 Out of 10 Cats and three million people watched the last series. So all I need is 1% of those people to turn up and that's a sell out. When I added up the maths, it made sense."

It turns out Jason has always looked on the bright side of his comedy career. "I remember when I first started out doing the circuit and I'd do Jongleurs and Rawhide and all those great clubs, I'd be earning essentially a week's wages in two nights and I'd think 'this is brilliant! This is as good as it gets!'

"It's one of those jobs, I keep thinking it can't get any better. I remember one time I was in Nottingham, I'd had a really tough gig and I was knackered, coming home in the car by myself, and thinking it was a really tough job. Then I looked outside and there was a man digging up the road in the dark, it was tipping down and I just thought - it's not that hard."

This year saw Jason end a stint as breakfast host on Manchester-based station XFM after touring commitments began to take their toll. "It was brilliant but I was getting up at 4.30am every morning and doing gigs until midnight.

"It was nice being part of people's mornings," he says with a genuine sweetness. "But when you start to dislike the sound of birdsong and you're shouting at the birds to shut up, you need to pack it in."

His admittedly middle-of-the-road style makes him a good choice for TV and radio jobs, he reckons. "Stand up gives you a good grounding to do those other things, because there's nothing else you can try on the back of stand up that's as difficult or as dangerous. On radio you're protected because the audience isn't in the same room. And you won't find out if you're not funny.

"I'm pretty mainstream as far as the alternative scenes go, which I think works in my favour. I'm sure die-hard stand up fans might go 'ooh, he's not very edgy'. But not everybody can be edgy or we'd all fall off the end. I don't really swear a lot or do anything really vulgar or offensive, it's all about just having a bit of a laugh."

Jason's stand-up career began almost by accident when he took to the stage of a club where he worked in the kitchen, when one of the acts didn't show up. Success came relatively quickly, and he won awards including North West Comedian of the Year while his act was still really in its embryonic stages. Expanding those first five minutes of killer material into a longer set proved problematic for the comic and he took time out to complete a degree in media and performance at Salford University.

"I took it seriously from then on," he says. "I had to do this like a job. I had to get up in the morning, go through the papers and the internet and stuff and write all day and ring people."

Now however, it's hard to get him off the stage when he's having a good time. "I do have a chat with people. People in the North West are more interactive than anywhere else in the country, to put it nicely. As long as it doesn't start getting silly or annoy people.

"I did three hours in Blackburn the other week, I was really Ken Dodding it up. I just stay on there for as long as I enjoy it. Although I can sense if people are clock watching or panicking, so I give a disclaimer - 'if you need to go I won't be offended!'

He is now best known for his work on panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats, alongside host Jimmy Carr and Sean Lock. "I first went on as a guest, it went really well. I was on Dave Spikey's team. Then I had Dave killed and they asked me to be captain.

"I didn't have Dave killed," he clarifies, bashfully. "He decided to knock it on the head and they asked me to take over. "Its a right laugh and I think I can't believe it's my job to have a mess about.

"I think we work well as a trio because we're different enough to complement each other. Jimmy has got a joke about everything, he's phenomenal. Sean, although he's based in reality does get a little bit surreal and I'm all the way in reality with anedotes and observations."

The team have just wrapped the latest series are waiting to see if the show gets recommissioned, although hopes are high. They celebrated with a party the night before Jason spoke to Box Office.

"We did some karaoke," he reveals, mid-yawn. "And at the end of the night Sean gave me a hug and said he really enjoyed this series. I nearly had a little cry! I was like a little abused cat who'd never been shown any love."

Jason Manford plays the Royal Court on December 4. The show is sold out, but he returns to the region on January 21 for a show at Warrington Parr Hall and Pyramid.

Meet Matt

2008-11-24T10:12:41Z

A little too much information from Comedy Central regular Matt Reed

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Matt Reed is one of the regular comedians at Comedy Central, which takes place at Baby Blue at the Albert Dock every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

How did you get into comedy?

I was back home in the North East and someone offered me five minutes on stage, I was stood in front of a load of farmers and my family. Suppose I must have been good or I would have got pitch-forked off the stage.

What is your favourite joke?

That's like asking someone 'what's your favourite song?' I've got one that always makes me laugh, its from Andy Askins. "I'm not a racist but the Ku Klux Klan all look the same to me". Always goes down well.

What is your favourite heckle?

There's so many, I always get called 118 because of my appearance. There was this one Irish guy who was shouting out and I said "I like the Irish accent, just not in a government building" and he came back and said "You've got three minutes to get off the stage" which I thought was a good comeback.

What do you think of the Baby Blue crowd?

Well you know it's always great to gig in Liverpool, the crowd gets so involved and it's always a great laugh.

Finally, do you have any lucky underwear?

Actually no I don't, I always go commando all day every day!

Machine gunned with comedy bullets

2008-11-20T17:00:48Z

DAVID Higgerson says with "absolute authority and confidence" you will love Russell Howard

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DECEMBER 1. A day of reckoning in the run up to Christmas. The day it dawns that all aspirations to better prepare for this Yuletide have failed. Any hopes of avoiding the Christmas present rush die. And mistletoe-loving Janice in the office starts every conversation with "Only 24 days to go" while wearing a Santa hat/reindeer antler/snowman topper and reminding you you've still not paid for the festive party the office is holding in a non-descript hotel function room.

Still, at least there's Russell Howard to look forward to. The Westcountry comedian with the floppy blond hair - quite arguably good cop to Frankie Boyle's evil one on Mock the Week - is back in Liverpool.

And if you, like me, have one of those annoying relatives who insists on saying "tell me what you want and I'll buy it now" when what they actually mean is "I can't be arsed trying to work out what you'll like" point them to Ticketmaster now and ask for access to Howard's gig.

I say with absolute authority and confidence that it will be only of the best comedy nights of the year - because I saw him live in Blackburn last weekend as part of the town's "You Must Be Joking" festival. Comedy audiences in Blackburn always have more than their fair share of people who march in, sit down, fold their arms and look at the comedian as if to say: "I've paid my money, now f***ing make me laugh."

Howard, it has to be said, was also hamstrung with a bad cold which had seen him cancel his Bridlington concert the night before. By the end, his voice had all but gone. I suspect many other performers would have knocked Blackburn on the head as well as Bridlington, but Howard was either genuine when he said he wouldn't miss his return trip to Blackburn for the world (the last time he was there, he was hugged by a child dressed as Osama Bin Laden) or he is just a superb professional.

Either way, them want wanted to be made to laugh, got their money's worth and then some. Despite the aforementioned heavy cold, Howard charged around the stage at a rate of knots, and had the audience engaged from the off thanks to his ability to draw us all into his stories, no matter how left-field, before delivering the knock-out punchline which never failed to raise a cheer.

His ability to remember what childhood was like, or perhaps his ability to articulate what we all think our childhoods were like, helps massively as does the fact there is new material throughout the show. For someone who appears on Mock the Week weekly, this shouldn't come as a surprise but the phrase "extended tour" always leads, in my mind, to the fear that we'll get a run of gags which were contemporary at the start of the tour, not the end.

That's certainly how I felt after the aforementioned Boyle's concert in Preston. Maybe it was the Methodist Hall-like surroundings, of the fact Boyle's warm-up was so good, but I left Boyle feeling deflated and disappointed. His humour works superbly on Mock the Week - quick opener, punchline, move on - but over 90 minutes on stage it began to feel as though the audience was been machine gunned with comedy bullets first formed at the start of the tour and subsequently collected off the floor after the audience had gone and reloaded for the next night. And the next night.

Not so Howard, who can mix quick-fire current comedy into his set-piece tales superbly. And the current comedy is just that. Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Russell Brand, Kerry Katona on This Morning and the current economic crisis were all in there, and very well received.

In fact, other than variations on his favourite themes about the Daily Mail and Middle Class England Sadly, though, there was no duplication of material from the last time I saw him in Liverpool, during the comedy festival last year.

That, to me, is the sign of a comedian who wants to put on a good show and make you want to come back. Which is why, if you've seen the advert for Howard and thought "I've seen it already", I'd urge you to think again. It may well be the biggest Christmas smile of the year.

A chat with Neil Fitzmaurice

2008-11-17T10:08:47Z

THE downstairs room of Slaughterhouse pub on Fenwick Street in Liverpool city centre has long been regarded as a great place for a comedy club.

Its latest incarnation just launched at the weekend courtesy of Liverpool actor and writer Neil Fitzmaurice.

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"It just came about at the right time for me," he says. "I hadn't done stand up in seven years - I gave up because I was sick of the travelling. This was the ideal opportunity.

"I like a challenge and like trying different things anyway. I've never run a comedy club before and this is a great room for comics, I know that from my own experience. It's not too big and I like doing intimate gigs. You can see the audience's faces, and I'm hoping for a really good atmosphere with regulars we can banter with."

For the launch Fitzmaurice - who will be the regular compere at the venue - decided on a Phoenix Nights reunion, fixing up the double headline act of Archie Kelly and Justin Moorhouse (Kenny Senior and Young Kenny in the show).

It was on the stand up circuit that Fitzmaurice met Peter Kay and Dave Spikey, and the writing partnership for British sitcom classic Phoenix Nights was born.

There are already plans to take the Laughter House in a different direction from other venues.

"What we want to try and achieve with this night is getting comics up to try new stuff. I'll call my mates to do sneaky one-offs. There's going to be a lot of surprises for people coming in. I hope the audience enjoy what we're putting on. I'm really excited, but there's some trepidation - the most important thing is people enjoy it. I think many comics will agree you don't do it for the money, so coming to a venue like this, they've got no qualms. They like that it is back to basics, where you can see people laughing. It's a much nicer thing to do. There's much more of an all hands to the pump atmosphere, and I'm just going to see what happens."

Fitzmaurice made his return to the stand up stage at the Royal Court earlier in the year as part of the Best of Liverpool night opening the city's annual comedy festival. It came after starring in a successful run of Alan Bleasedale's On the Ledge at the same venue.

"That gave me the confidence to go out and do this, it was the boost I needed. If I'd died on my arse I probably wouldn't be doing this. It's a struggle doing stand up to remain confident, but once you're up there and get a couple of laughs, it's fine."

Aside from the comedy club, Knowsley-based Fitzmaurice has a number of other projects in the pipeline, including series six of Peep Show, which will start filming early next year.

"For the first couple of series, my character Jeff was quite active, but then Olivia Colman [who plays Sophie] started having kids and taking time out, and because her character was connected to mine, so did I. "I'm definitely involved in some way. I like doing Peep Show but I think Jeff's been wasted over the last couple of series.

"He's actually the only nemesis Mark [David Mitchell] has in the show. Jeremy [Robert Webb] has Super Hans and numerous girlfriends, but Mark's only ever had Jeff to piss him off."

Manchester-based BBC3 sketch show Scallywagga will be making a return and his new sitcom Admin has been given the green light from Steve Coogan's production company Baby Cow.

Perhaps closest of all to Fitzmaurice's heart is the film Charlie Noades RIP, the follow up to his 2000 success Going Off Big Time. The Liverpool comedy stars a raft of talent from the Phoenix Nights stable including Justin Moorhouse and Steve Edge and regional actors including John McArdle, Pauline Daniels and Mickey Finn. After years of fundraising to finish the project, it is now finally in post production.

"We're going to try and have a premiere in December," he says. "It's taken seven years to get the money, we couldn't really get any help off anyone. Going Off Big Time was a success and nominated for awards, but that still didn't afford me anything. I think the people people who made money off it were the people who ripped it off and sold it at the Heritage Market!"

So what keeps Neil Fitzmaurice going when the odds are stacked against him? "I've never had anything land in my lap," he grins. "But if I have any kind of discernable talent at all, it's proving people wrong."

The Laughter House is open every Friday and Saturday with doors at 6pm and stand-up between 7.30pm and 9.30pm.

Tickets are £10 from Tongue in Cheek Comedy on 0151 728 9898 or www.tongueincheekcomedy.com.

Review: Ed Byrne

2008-11-10T12:55:20Z

OOPS. IOU one Ed Byrne review. Time flies when you're having fun - or working the kind of hours that would have a Frenchman rioting.

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Although when it comes down to it, I've probably been putting this review off because there's not too much you can say when it comes to Mr Byrne. Top notch, ever-reliable, worth-the-cover-price, plenty of laughs, good old Ed Byrne.

He returned to the Royal Court - a nice stage for the man, it should be said - on October 26, so a little synopsis is overdue. The show is called Different Class and Byrne is at his most enjoyable talking about the Ireland of his youth, where he explains he fitted in neither with the middle nor the working class kids around him (he didn't have a horse, he explains, unlike the pony set, or indeed the pikeys, which brought to mind the run-down Dublin of the Commitments). He's an 1980s kid, so jokes about Soda Stream and the like hit the mark nicely with the crowd of contemporaries.

Byrne remains one of the best storytellers out there, with throwaway lines that would form the high points of any other comedian's set ("You know what I call a group of goths? A mood. And do you know what I call a group of emos? An isobar. Because they're linked by a depression"). For the sheer likeability and laugh count he can't be beaten. It is impossible not to like him.

So perhaps it's my personal disinterest in weddings that made the last 20 minutes of his set, given over as they were to all things nuptual, seem a bit smug and workaday to me.

That's life I suppose, but by the time he's become a father things might have become so depressingly middle of the road I'll just be sat in the middle of the Royal Court silently weeping for the old days.

A chat with Tim Minchin

2008-10-30T13:03:24Z

THE singing Aussie comic rings in for a chat and wades right into the Brand-Ross debate...

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Often compared to Bill Bailey, solely by way of them both being musical comedians, Tim Minchin has honed his own style of show blending stand up with songs - purely by way of not knowing what else was out there.

In fact he says he was so terrified of the comparisons at first that he couldn't watch Bailey's act for years.

"We look a bit the same obviously, with the hair and beard, and we look a bit ugly like trolls," Minchin says. "But the style of music we play is very different, as is the way we present ourselves. I'm perfectly happy with the comparison if it makes people come and check me out. I'm happy with what I'm doing and knowing I'm not on some sliding scale of Bailey-ness."

Now living in London, he grew up in Perth, where he devoted his higher education to music. His career took off, he says, winning the Perrier award at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival.

"I do a very theatical show," he says. "Basically, it's a cabaret show, but I try to avoid that word, as it's associated with out of work musical stars singing Andrew Lloyd Webber hits.

"I'm a pianist, I've been writing songs for many more years than I've been doing comedy so it's just my own version of stand up. I've been writing songs since I was 12, and two out of every three would collapse into stupidity - I'm not very good at taking them seriously."

Explaining his humour, he says: "A lot of comedians take stupid little things and make a big deal - I take big things and make a stupid deal. Not about muffins and annoying people on the bus, but racism, death and sex. It sounds boring but I'm obsessed with critical thinking, things like religion, and censorship."

Which leads us nicely into the hot topic of the week - the controversy surrounding Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, whom, with the big hair, eyeliner and black wardrobe, it cannot be helped but noticed bears a bit of a resemblence to Minchin, who is fit to burst with the media storm surrounding the whole incident.

"It's nonsense," Minchin spits. "This conservative moralising. This whole people with pitchforks thing, I can't tell you how much it annoys me. I think Andrew Sachs himself should come out and say 'I was a little upset but I didn't expect all the morons in the country to get on their high horses'. That's what he should do, for the sake of sanity.

"Because it just doesn't matter. A comedian quoted out of context shouldn't be published. What we do, if I can put myself in the echelons of Brand and Ross, is attempt to get away with things.

"If you take a certain joke I do and print it in the newspaper I'd be stoned in some small towns, but in the context of my stand up it makes a comment on our attitudes. Brand and Ross were just being numpties, but it's our job as satirists is to stop people thinking inside that conservative box."

Tim Minchin plays the Runcorn Brindley Theatre on Thursday, November 6.. His DVD, So F**cking Rock, Live, is released on November 10.

Check him out here:

Some would say the Grafton has always been a comedy club...

2008-10-22T09:38:49Z

You wait ages for a new comedy night and then three come along at once.

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Well it's all going on over here. Baby Blue have upped their Comedy Central night to four times a week (Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday), Neil Fitzmaurice is about to relaunch the Slaughterhouse comedy night (more soon), and now we know the Grafton is about to reopen as a "comedy lounge".

Not sure if this spells the end of its use as a venue for Britain's Hardest Doorman-type cage fights, but hopefully it will be attracting an altogether more peaceful crowd.

The club's owners, father and son Panos and Chris Zorba, say they plan to turn the Olympia complex (on West Derby Road) into one of the city's leading nightspots for comedy and entertainment.

Chris Zorba said: "The Grafton has been a great servant to the people of Liverpool. Whilst it has often been parodied [like in the title of this blog], it has remained popular since it began trading in 1924. However, with the death of the disco industry, we have decided to diversify the role of the Olympia Complex and turn the venue into a club for comedy acts of the highest calibre."

Keith Carter headlines the opening weekend on Halloween and November 1, along with city regulars Silky, Steve Royal, and compere Chris Cairns.

John Bishop follows on November 7 and 8, with John Warburton, Stephen Porter and host Jason Cook, and the following week, Three Non-Blondes star Ninia Benjamin leads the comedy charge.

For more info see www.olympialaughterlounge.com.

Knowing me, knowing you (and the Mail, ITN, the Indy...)

2008-10-17T13:15:39Z

SEE journalism eat itself, dear readers, with a blog about a news story about another news story about a blog about a review (or something like that)

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Well, in some small way we might have got some mileage out of Steve Coogan coming to the city after all. As we used this blog to regroup after our experiences watching his two arena shows this week, it seems it wasn't just audience members paying attention and now we're all over the Independent (page three, no less, and at time of writing the second most viewed story on their website), the Daily Mail website and ITN news.

Here at the Daily Post, we're wondering whether the national papers have a personal axe to grind against Coogan to have picked this up just to have fun kicking him while he's down - I certainly didn't get any pleasure writing that review and genuinely hope he can turn this around.

But if it was the simple matter of one bad review in a regional paper then the nationals wouldn't have given a toss. What grabbed their attention was the comments - bloody loads of them - from scores of unhappy people who had seen the show for themselves and wanted to give their two cents.

I was imagining maybe three or four comments if I was lucky, but the response just went through the roof. What's more, despite the sheer disappointment from people, the majority are unbiased, eloquent, and hilarious. They've been keeping us laughing in the office all week and are still coming.

It really, genuinely pained me to have to write what I did and I'm still in shock about it - and it seems the same goes for everyone else on here. With all the good will in the world, the Liverpool crowd wanted Coogan to come on stage and reign supreme. He had the crowd on his side - how could it have gone so wrong?

Some people, apparently happy with their lot, said maybe expectations were too high and that is was early days so give him a break, but what a load of nonsense. He said he was nervous, and that's fair enough, but he's a professional. Like I told ITN this morning (get me), this was more than an everyday gig, it was an arena show, a real event that people made a special effort to make sure they were at - birthday presents, treats, etc, and the tickets were not cheap.

Quite why the Comedy Blog got such a response from posters compared to other sites like Chortle and the Guardian (safeconcerts.com also got a high number of comments), I've no idea, although I think it may have helped us all to know we weren't alone...

I did an interview with Adrian Edmonson today (Christ, I'm turning into a monster), and mentioned what had been going on. I told him about the comment from Chris Fearnhough (also quoted in the Indy) who said "I recently went to see Leonard Cohen in concert and I have to say Leonard was funnier", and he nearly dropped the phone laughing. So well done you lot, here's to our somewhat dubious 15 minutes of fame.

Ed Byrne's different class

2008-10-17T09:24:15Z

ED Byrne returns to Liverpool next week and was goodly enough to answer the phone and tell us a bit more about it.

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ED Byrne is on a high. His latest stand up show, Different Class, is already being hailed as his best work, and with mainstream success beckoning and and a new Mrs Byrne by his side, it's all going rather well - not that he's getting a big head about it.

"The audiences and the press, and other comics and people I admire have said it's a better show, but an exciting thing about stand up is that no matter how good you feel you're getting, you're never 100% sure," he says. "You only know these things because people tell you."

He's had two long stints warming up for his latest tour, with the usual month at the Edinburgh Festival in August followed by a five-week residency at the Riverside in London, and he comes to the Royal Court on Sunday, October 26.

"You go a bit stir crazy in the same place for that long, so I'm looking forward to going on tour," he says. "The audiences are different, and I'm not just saying that. London is its own animal, but I generally prefer touring up north. Generally, gigs in the Home Counties I don't find that enjoyable.

"It's weird though because it does depend. In Liverpool gigs at the Royal Court have always gone nicely, whereas at the Neptune they've not been that good. It's weird that in different theatres in the same town, the crowds can be different."

It's been a slow burn to mainstream success for Byrne, who has always enjoyed critical acclaim for his observational comedy, defined by his endless Irish charm and exasperation with the everyday (so charming, in fact, he called his live DVD Pedantic & Whimsical in response to the two adjectives most used to describe his act).

"I think it went quite fast initially, from my first arrival in 1994 I had a bit of a peak, then it kind of plateaued and fell away again," he argues modestly. "I was sort of flagging in the wilderness around 2003/ 2004 and I've come back again in the last couple of years. Perhaps I can put it down to good or bad decisions on my part, but this shows maybe the quality of my stand up maybe wilted a little bit in the middle.

"I have really gotten into writing again, and this show has been received better than any other show I've done before. It's quite gratifying to know at this stage in my career I'm still improving and I haven't reached a stage where I'm not going to get any funnier, and it isn't like 'hope you enjoy it - that's it!'"

The new show, Different Class, is named after the comic's ponderings on his childhood and family, and how he never felt working class but couldn't be said to be middle class either.

"But it's not all about that either. I do a bit about getting into an argument and thinking about what you should have said the next day. These things get longer and longer and that's my favourite way to write. Stuff gets longer, stuff that is less funny gets pushed out. It could be a one-liner about goths turns into a five minute piece on the youth of today."

He's said this before, about one of his best known routines that is a sublime observation on the intention to get up early and how your productive plans for the morning change when you find you just can't stop hitting the snooze button.

It's probably second only to one of his early and classic successes, a dissection of Alanis Morrissette's song Ironic ("It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife? That's only ironic if you find out later a spoon would have done.").

"It was just a one-liner to do with waking up and not knowing what time it is, looking to see it's 4am and going 'mmm'... Then realising you're a milkman and you've slept in," he says. "Just a one liner that spun into a ten minute routine. It almost feels like cheating when that happens."

Another part of the show features on his recent wedding, a subject he immediately saw as ripe for the picking. "I was writing about that because that was what was on my mind, and that's nice, because even if you're not married people can relate to the subject, so it's not alien for folk. The problem was essentially dealing with people who deal in the wedding industry.

"It's incredible, the things you end up spending money on," he ponders. "We weren't looking for some amazing fancy-pants thing, but it just felt like I was banging my head against the whole industry."

A nice sideline for Byrne is his regular appearances on radio and TV panel games, of which he is now something of an old hand. "They used to be a bit of a sell out. But now the rest of television has gotten so sh*t, it's now become a credible thing to do, rather than doing a celebrity reality show," he laughs.

His favourite to participate in is Have I Got News For You. "You actually feel like you've crawled into the television," he says. "I watched it before I was even a comic, so I really liked the show and to be on that was quite an honour. And it's easy to get in. Mock the Week is a bit more of a bunfight, that's seven comedians all vying for attention."

But BBC2 series Mock the Week gives him time to catch up with his best pal, fellow Irish comedian Dara O'Briain. "He's a very good friend of mine - I was best man at his wedding and he was mine - so it's quite fun to throw a banana at him when he's trying to do a link, or say he should change his last name to Rabumptiay."

What?

"So he can say his name is Dara Rabumptiay. It's quite gratifying when that mad, silly, playground stuff gets kept in."

REVIEW: Mighty Boosh, Echo Arena Liverpool

2008-10-15T09:32:17Z

COMEDY hasn't worked spectacularly well in the arena so far, so a bit of a spectacle was required...

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IT'S a huge relief to be able to say that the Mighty Boosh have breathed the kiss of life into arena comedy, just 24 hours after Steve Coogan had threatened to kill it stone dead.

"Liverpool, you're like a big, frisky horse", giggled Vince Noir (Noel Fielding), dressed in a typically gauche sparkly silver shirt, and an entire city was won over.

The duo spent the first half of the show ingraciating themselves with the audience and introducing a selection of characters from the TV show, including Tony Harrison (a pink, alien head), the Moon (footage of Fielding covered in shaving foam for the effect) and the Crack Fox (a down and out mammal).

The show had charm and laughs in abundance and the Boosh seemed genuinely happy to be there - much more than their recent third TV outing, which had seemed somewhat weak and insular in comparison. This was just complete fun that everyone was welcome to join in and enjoy.

The second half was to be given over to a play written by hopeless jazz freak Howard Moon (Julian Barratt), the other half of the pair - a frightening prospect after Coogan tried the same with Alan Partridge earlier in the week - but Barratt, as the straight man, seemed for once to soar out of the shadow of his flamboyant partner Fielding, showing a versatility and comic prowess at the top of his game.

Dave Brown, as talking gorilla Bollo and a variety of supporting characters, has been a Boosh staple since the beginning and really impressed as a smart and dedicated driving force behind the show.

Their show had come on leaps and bounds since their first trip to Liverpool two years ago, with a brand new set up, almost a snappy, sketch format, rather than just piecing together bits of the TV series. Mike Fielding, as Naboo the shaman, had an understated role this time but still got plenty of laughs. Rich Fulcher, as misfit Bob Fossil, always comes into his own on stage, and he put in a manic, beautifully ridiculous performance that would disarm even the most serious of audience members.

There were new and classic songs of course, although not the typical selection fans might expect - and whichever way you look at it, the Boosh were preaching to the converted here.

The show ended as a gig, with a string of high-energy punk songs that had the crowd on its feet.

And that's how you do arena comedy.

Steve Coogan - what went wrong?

2008-10-12T22:38:50Z

THERE was only room for 250 words of critique in today's paper on Steve Coogan's Liverpool show last night, and they had to be polite and professionally written words at that.

But really... come on... what the hell was that?!

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The original review appears in bold, with the ramblings of a gutted Cooganite following in normal type. Were you there? Was it just me?! Comments please. It will help me make sense of what happened. Like therapy.

IT had seemed somewhat strange that Steve Coogan, cracking America quite nicely at the moment, had decided to tour the UK as (to use the title of the show itself) Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful Characters.

(Because he just did a scene-stealing job in the awesome Tropic Thunder, made a huge impact over there with Hamlet 2 and was in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Why spoil it now?)

And after a contemptible and almost woeful show last night, the question still remains.

(If he hasn't damn near ruined his reputation in this country with this, I'd be surprised.)

An audience of a mere few thousand filled the arena to see Coogan last night, and a lesser number stayed to the end.

(He charged £30 a pop for the most offensively half-arsed evening of comedy theatre I have ever seen in my life.)

He first appeared as Pauline Calf with what would have been a cute, funny song and dance number if he had injected it with any life at all. Some good one liners went mostly to waste as lines were fluffed and rushed, and the precedent had been set - although the part where she read from her new book was quite a giggle.

(I love Pauline Calf so much. I wanted this to work and with a bit of effort it would have been brilliant. But still, at this point there was time...)

Next was Tommy Saxondale,

(Probably the most consistent part of the evening as Coogan took on his recent knackered old roadie character. An interesting enough set about the dangers of drugs and a high energy song kept it ticking over.)

before his wacky comedian Duncan Thicket made a lamentable appearance,

(Awful.)

and then Paul Calf.

(Again, some good material and another very good song full of wit, with a bit of Benny Hill-esque leering for good measure (a bit lame).)

Excitement was palpable for the arrival of Alan Partridge,

(This is true. It was cool.)

and things began well with some quality daft songs from the man,

(He's in a polo neck and bomber jacket! It's Alan Partridge singing The Final Countdown! Things were looking up. A great, energised start to the second half.)

but his inexplicable play about Sir Thomas More

(Alan had returned as the author of a successful motivation guide, Forward Solutions. But the nuances of the TV series were lost and things went downhill as he announced he had written and would be starring in a play about the Tudor martyr for no reason at all. Again, lines were fluffed and rushed through as if Coogan and his four other players couldn't wait for the end. Then it was the end. It was extremely confusing by then.)

tested the patience of the most dedicated fans.

(One heartbroken heckler waiting until a quiet moment to yell "f*cking sh*te, Steve" at the top of his voice as he left. Toecurlingly embarrassing, totally rude, but somehow sadly heartfelt. By this point a notable number of people had walked out.)

By the end of the show, during a number cheerily and liberally throwing about four-letter words with little finesse, four cast members were twirling umbrellas spelling the most taboo in the canon, and it was at that point it really felt as if Coogan was addressing his audience personally.

(He clearly thought we were all c**ts.)

A chat with Paddy McGuinness

2008-10-12T22:30:58Z

A scheduled interview with the Daily Post is marginally more interesting than the menu at Nando's for the Max and Paddy star (but only just)

Read on...

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THE phone rings and it's Paddy McGuinness, calling ten minutes early.

It's a refreshing spot of celebrity punctuality, but then celebrity has never been the Bolton comedian's thing. This was brought to the fore at several points during our chat, as it was established that a) he rang as he was being dragged around the Trafford Centre, and b) he used the interview as an excuse to take time out from the shops and grab a table at Nando's.

McGuinness, like all the other actors and comedians from the Peter Kay/ Phoenix Nights stable, is the real deal. A sitcom star with a nice little sideline in adverts, voiceovers and sports interest programmes and DVD specials (including a stint filling in for Paul O'Grady) he is returning to the stand up scene with his latest tour - his first in two years - with Paddy McGuinness Plus You!

His shows are selling out all over the place, and he comes to the Philharmonic Hall on Wednesday October 29, with a specially selected opening act, the Lancashire Hotpots. It was his idea to select a number of different support acts to help him through the extensive list of dates.

"When you're touring you usually have a comedian with you, following you round, and what happens is sometimes people will come back and see you a few times, so I was wondering, how do you keep it fresh?

"So I ran a competition to find a support acts - anything, a singer, comedian, a juggler, a band - and asked them to send me a DVD. Now depending on where we were going there'll be a different support act.

"It's strange when you're doing interviews when you're asked about going to places, as you forget where you've played. But I know Liverpool, I go there a hell of a lot on nights out. I can't remember who it'll be there, but it'll be good."

The Lancashire Hotpots are a cult comedy folk band, best known for their ditties including Chippy Tea and eBay 'Eck, from their album Never Mind the Hotpots. However, McGuinness did the choosing all in good spirits, and never fancied turning himself into some kind of Northern Simon Cowell.

"I didn't want to audition people because I didn't feel I was in any position to judge. I didn't want to go down that big X Factor road, I just wanted to pick."

The nice thing about Paddy McGuinness is how genuinely laid back he sounds, particularly in the line of fire of what are presumably overfamiliar questions. "Did you read that on Wikipedia?" he'll joke, or just patiently steer the interview onto his tracks.

"The tour is going fantastic so far - it's not really about the support acts," he says goodnaturedly. Point taken. He's proud of his 'everyman' persona and stresses all he wants to make sure he does is make the audience laugh. Like fellow Bolton resident Peter Kay, in which he also starred in Phoenix Nights spin off Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, McGuinness, 35, concerns himself with the absurdity of the everyday.

"My show's a little bit more like modern variety," he says. "A lot of audience interaction, a bit of music, bit of video on screens. If people are just having a laugh at a show, that's great, that's my job. It's not about people stroking their chins going "I'm not laughing, but it's very clever"."

McGuinness has had two years off from stand up. It would appear it is something he only likes to take on on his own terms.

"I only get out there when I feel the need to do it," he explains. "I did stand up before I was known in Phoenix Nights, but I didn't do it as a full-time job as I never really enjoyed being on stage. I'd think to myself, why would you put yourself through that?

"I used to watch Peter [Kay] doing it and see he'd get £40 for it, but I never looked at it as a real job. When the show first started, then I got into stand up. When people know you, and when people are coming to see you, it's a totally different atmosphere.

"A lot of comedians start off and the audience don't know them from Adam, and it's very hard work. When you making a name for yourself and people are coming to watch you and are buying tickets to come and see you, everything else is a lot better, it's a lot more fun. They already like you!

"Comedy is a lot more accessible now. Places like the Comedy Store in Manchester, you get more groups going there who are not necessarily into comedy and that's sort of what my audience is like too - old people, young people, couples, big groups, people who perhaps just want a bit of a giggle."

He has been on the road since the summer and doesn't stop until before Christmas. When asked if there's anything else is in the pipeline, McGuinness nearly chokes. "I'm not a machine!" he laughs.

Gest not

2008-10-02T11:17:48Z

HOW terribly disappointing, it's another no show from David Gest. He was due in Liverpool on Monday for a show at the Philharmonic but he's done himself a mischief.

Not comedy, I hear you cry? Wait until you hear what the former Mr Minnelli had up his sleeve....

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David Gest... My Life! was set to be an all -singing, all-dancing new show about... well, the clue's all there in the title.

I've always been a Camp Liza girl but this just sounded too ludicrous not to go and see. Gest was to be accompanied in his "musical concert extravaganza" by a whole range of very strange blasts-from-the-past, upping the 'WTF' factor up a couple more notches, including one of the Stylistics, one of En Vogue, Peabo Bryson of A Whole New World fame, Deniece "Let's Hear it for the Boy" Williams, Freda "Band of Gold" Payne, and special guests including one likely suspect, Peter Andre. Tickets are an eye-wateringly expensive £34 - £59.

They're very keen to stress he's coming back in January but this is the second time he's injured himself in the line of duty for the show and had to cry off. Ergo they're keen to make the following sound as feasable as possible:

"According to David Gest's London physician, the music producer and television star (voted the UK's second favourite reality star of all-time according to MSN Entertainment) suffered a direct traumatic injury to his left anterior tibia approximately six inches above the ankle joint on Tuesday 09 September just after filming a successful quadruple flip for the BBC1 Breakfast News.

"The accident occurred as Gest was practicing his routine for his upcoming UK tour, David Gest...My Life!.

"A dancer caught Gest improperly on the tibia and lacerated Gest's skin. Not letting that bother him, Gest repeated the flip but the dancer once again injured Gest and deepened the wound.

"Gest has been advised by his doctor to have a skin graft operation swiftly to prevent further continued damage to his leg. Gest is flying to the US to have the operation done by his personal surgeon and will recover from the operation in the US.

No surprise to find David Gest has his own personal surgeon, but it's not to say he's not disappointed about the whole thing. He bemoans: "I've had to move four television appearances including 8 Out of 10 Cats until November". So it must be true.

"I am so looking forward to this tour and I hope the old adage is true, the third time's a charm," he says. We'll see about that if he finally makes it here on January 10.