STAND-UP ADAM BLOOM The Stand, Glasgow, Fri 7 & Sat 8 Mar; the Stand. Edinburgh, Sun 9 Mar
I have to admit I went to school with Adam Bloom. I’m not gonna pretend we were bessie mates or anything but he was a semi-celebrity even then: he knew how to do the Rubik’s Cube behind his back! He makes jokes about teachers that used to teach me, about the corner of London I grew up in. He’s a nice bloke and it’s interesting to see how the schoolyard clown made the leap to become one of the darlings of the stand-up circuit. ’I went to see Harry Hill and was just amazed,’ Bloom explains. ‘I turned round to my girtfriend and said: “I have to do that.” And that was that. It wasn’t about the money, it was about getting up there and having a go.’ Bloom went on to sell out more Edinburgh Festival dates than the Maharaja’s chief curry taster’s had hot dinners. Five star reviews stick to him like peanut-butter to the roof of your mouth. He’s just so darn Iikeabie; almost like one of your mates who goes on a roll after a couple of pints. But he has maintained that roll for nine years, instead of drifting off into incoherent pissed-up ramblings and starting fights with policemen. ‘An hour has to be a show. Not just a gig, but an event,’ says Bloom. ‘With an hour of material there needs to be peaks and troughs and some sort of structure, like a film. I’m at my best over an hour.
I didn’t go to Edinburgh last year and i missed it desperately. I love the idea of
having an audience that have come to see you for an hour to strap in and
commit themselves to you.’ So what kept him away from one of his favourite events of the year then? ‘I was writing a Radio 4 pilot [provisionally titled Deconstruction of a Crime] and now l've been commissioned to write a series. So the reason I might not be coming this year is that l have to write the five other episodes.’ From his enthusiasm it’s hard to tell who’s
looking forward to these shows more: him or
us? ‘The Comedy Store in Leicester Square, Up The Creek in Greenwich and the Stand in
Glasgow are equally the best comedy clubs I’ve ever performed,’ he says. ‘The' one in Edinburgh is a lovely, lovely
room, but the one in Glasgow . . . I can’t
put it into words. It’s just thumpingly
intens'e.’ (Henry Northmore)
A saint among us: Bloom goes from schoolyard clown to stand-up superstar
ALAN CARR Oot at the Stand. Edinburgh. Tue 11 Mar; the Stand. Glasgow. Wed 12 Mar
Not a happy camper
.loking aside
.. t't 0 “at: .t"' JUN/5
GARTH CRUIKSHANK AND Eddie McCabe could soon be added to the bill of the aforementioned three-week comedy gala. The two are poised to play a one-off gig at the Arches in their Dave Strong/Harry Ainsworth guise. and who knows, it could be the start of something beautiful.
The Boosh blokes
DOUG STANHOPE IS reportedly making waves over in the US. The political fireball who blasted us with his brutal wit at last year‘s festival — and is returning to these shores as part of the GICF — has been lined-up to host Comedy Central‘s The Man Show in the autumn.
MORE TELLY NEWS — Johnny Vegas' radio show Night Class is to transfer to the box. In the radio incarnation, the St Helens comic genius plays an alcoholic who teaches pottery to a bunch of oddballs. British Comedy Award. anyone? And surreal comic act The Boosh have been given their own show on BBC Three. Julian and Noel will be back as two zookeepers searching for the Egg of Mantumbi in the arctic tundra. Clearly bonkers. but undoubtedly brilliant.
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