Comedy
Saturday 31
Glasgow ✽✽ Foster’s Comedy Live: New Year’s Eve Highlight, UGC
Building, 11 Renfrew Street, 0844 844 0044. 8.30pm. £20. Hogmanay comedy bash featuring Scott Agnew, John Gavin, Des Clarke and Stu Who?
✽✽ Hogmanay Hootfest! The Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, 0844 335
8879. 9pm. £22.50 (£19; members £15). See Tue 27.
5 BEST COMEDY GIGS OF 2011 Tim Key Having netted Edinburgh’s big fat award for comedy in 2009, the former Coward blasted back in August with an absolute corker of a show. Masterslut was a masterclass of interactive improv raised to glorious levels by the most memorable use of a fully-drawn bath in comedy history. Tommy Tiernan Setting aside his penchant for controversy and going down the road of playfulness and ‘devilment’, the Irish comedian brought Poot to town, a hilarious and thoughtful analysis of the behavioural patterns society deems ‘normal’. With the added bonus of an Early Learning Centre bubble machine. Stephen Merchant Revelling in the opportunity to come out from the shadow of ‘his nibs’, the Oggmonster gave us Hello Ladies! A straight-down-the-line funny-as- hell show about his life-long inability to scoop himself a lady, Merchant used his vast height, comedy face and a rather wonderful way with some funny words to brilliant effect. Luke Wright Are you meant to be moved to tears at a comedy show? The Aisle 16 chap achieved this rare feat with aplomb in a couple of places during his Cynical Ballads show which offered up eight poetically funny/sad ‘caustic tales from Broken Britain’. Jerry Sadowitz When it comes to ‘caustic,’ the New Jersey-born Scottish comic is in a league of his own. Look a little closer and you might find that beneath the putrid filth of gags about dead children, race and other comedians, the ‘victim’ of the jokes is Sadowitz himself. A sad loser compelled to vent some charred spleen, you suspect he’d rather be doing nice card tricks for money. (Brian Donaldson)
80 THE LIST 15 Dec 2011–5 Jan 2012
Edinburgh FREE Whose Lunch Is It Anyway? The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 1.30pm. See Sun 18. Jongleurs Comedy NYE Special Lava Ignite, 3 West Tollcross, 228 3252. 7pm. £49.50 (including three course meal and night club entry). Big night to warm up for Hogmanay, starring Janey Godley, whose fun, forthright humour ushers in the new year with laughs aplenty. Saturday Night Live The Shack, 119 Rose Street, 226 4311. 8pm. £9. See Sat 17.
✽✽ Foster’s Comedy Live: New Year’s Eve Highlight, Omni
Centre, Greenside Place, 0844 844 0044. 9pm. £20. Why not spend the last night of 2011 in the company of Bruce Devlin, Dougie Dunlop, Kevin Gildea and Joe Heenan to have a right good laugh before the bells?
✽✽ Hogmanay Hootfest! The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 9pm. £22.50
(£19; members £15). See Tue 27. Sunday 1
Edinburgh FREE Whose Lunch Is It Anyway? The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 1.30pm. See Sun 18.
✽✽ Hogmanay Hootfest! The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 9pm. £12
(£10). See Tue 27. Monday 2
Glasgow ✽✽ Joe Heenan’s Movie Madness The Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, 0844 335 8879. 8.30pm. £4. Film geek and comedian Joe Heenan presents a night of showing off how much you know about the movies. With team captains Mark Nelson and Stu Murphy. Teams of up to six can enter.
Edinburgh Red Raw The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 8.30pm. £2. The new talent night which digs out the latest entertainers and offers older hands a place to test their newest gags. Hosted by Katie Mulgrew.
Tuesday 3
Glasgow FREE Pop-Up Comedy The Halt Bar, 160 Woodlands Road, 353 6450. 8.30pm. See Tue 20. Red Raw The Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, 0844 335 8879. 8.30pm. £2. New acts, new material and a rammed room full of optimism and people who don’t like paying more than £2 for a cracking night of comedy. Hosted by the delicious Jojo Sutherland.
Edinburgh ✽✽ Wicked Wenches The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 8.30pm. £6
(£5; members £3). Every month The Stand puts together a collection of the finest female comedians working the circuit, with an increasingly delicious crop to pick from. This time around, host Susan Calman introduces us to the sparkling wits of Ava Vidal, Katie Mulgrew, Ruth Cockburn and Leona Irvine.
Wednesday 4
Glasgow Banter in the Buff The Buff Club, 142 Bath Lane, 248 1777. 8.30pm. £5. Sadly, no nudity involved, instead it’s a gang of the country’s funniest folk vying to impress with their jokes and things. FREE Gong Show Vespbar, 14 Drury Street, 07909 822841. 8.30pm. See Wed 21.
✽✽ Wicked Wenches The Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, 0844 335 8879.
8.30pm. £6 (£5; members £3). See Tue 3. Edinburgh Beatnik Comedy The Tron, 9 Hunter Square, High Street, 226 0931. 8.30pm. £3 (students £2). See Wed 21.
DVD round-up: live comedy
In 2009, Forbes.com placed Jeff Dunham as the third richest American comedian behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, having banked an estimated $30million. In response, an astonished Dunham mouthed: ‘The one thing I’m proud of most is that my show has no social redeeming value whatsoever . . . you come and leave your brain at the door.’ I’ll say. Dunham insists that on stage he is playing a liberal character, reacting with consternation at the racist nonsense spewed forth during Controlled Chaos (●●●●●) by the likes of Walter (Africans live in houses ‘made of shit’) and Peanut (Chinese people really talk funny, don’t they?). Take the dummies away and that’s simply Jeff Dunham speaking to a crowd of yelping white folks.
Ed Byrne once had a brilliant live radio tussle with Piers Morgan, who gets it in the neck once more during Crowd Pleaser (●●●●●). The Irishman is fine company as he muses on being a new father and a lifelong nerd, touching upon the daftness of religion along the way. Richard Herring cranks up the ecclesiastical-baiting with Christ on a Bike (●●●●●), taking his trademark pedantry to new levels with forensic analyses of the Ten Commandments and the somewhat lumbering opening to the New Testament.
The best of this bunch are two shows that could barely be any different. Tim Vine rolls out gag after silly gag in The Joke-A-Motive (●●●●●) but it is simply irresistible. Storyteller Tommy Tiernan’s Crooked Man (●●●●●) shows off the former Perrier winner and Jerusalem Post bête noir to gorgeous and hilarious effect. Shot by Richard Ayoade, the set itself is a mish-mash of his current Poot show (see 5 Best Comedy Gigs of 2011, left) and 2010’s Crooked Man with, if I’m not mistaken, even one small story about emerging sexuality from his very first Edinburgh Fringe show in 1997. There’s unlikely to be a more compelling stand-up out there today, with this show giving us all the sides of Tiernan from the hushed conspirator to the firebrand preacher, riffing on childhood, family and a little bit of politics. Pure genius, so it is. (Brian Donaldson) ■ For more live DVD reviews, see list.co.uk/comedy
Thursday 5 Glasgow The Thursday Show The Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, 0844 335 8879. 8.30pm. £8 (£7; members £4). The weekend starts right here, right now with Ian Cognito, who has apparently been banned from more comedy venues than anyone else, so you’d better get in there while you still can. Tonight also features Chris Forbes, Nicola Mantalios-Lovett, Stephen Halkett and host Raymond Mearns.
Edinburgh The Thursday Show The Stand, 5 York Place, 558 7272. 9pm. £8 (£7; members £4). Start the weekend with a line-up comprising the finest headliners and the juiciest up-and-comers plucked from the world of stand-up. Known for his improv talents, established Irish comedian Ian Coppinger headlines tonight, with Ava Vidal, Sean Grant, Damian Kingsley and Gareth Waugh. Hosted by Bruce Devlin. Comedy Academy The Shack, 119 Rose Street, 226 4311. 9.30pm. £3. See Thu 15.