Tonight’s stand-up mini-fest is adeptly hosted by the indefatigable Arthur Smith, with his trademark mining of archaeologically ancient jokes.
First up is Carey Marx, in an unremittingly filthy set, which leaves no area of sexual or excretory humour untouched. But there’s nothing prurient or nudge-nudge about it: he is adept at pushing the boundaries, and then leaping unashamedly over them while challenging the audience to come with him. It works a treat, there’s c-words, front bottoms, farts, poo and the whole works; but he manages sly left-field and very witty gags out of all of it. Mary Whitehouse, where is thy sting?
Christian Talbot, a soft-voiced Irishman, says he’s not a comedian and wants to tell us a story. He goes on to tell us of his student days on exchange in Italy and the flat he stayed in. Yes, so? Then goes on to say that decades later the flat was the scene of a particularly famous murder, the victim and accused perpetrator he names, and we all recollect. He says he wrote to the accused woman in question, and produces the correspondences and reads them out. That’s when it gradually gets sillier and sillier and the weirdly left-field humour comes out. A totally unexpected way to do stand-up, and eerily clever.
Sasha Ellen is a young woman making much of her nerdiness, obsession with Dungeons and Dragons, the habits of yoga teachers, and comments on her sex life. Because nerds do have sex, you know. You’d have to know something about Dungeons and Dragons to get the jokes about that.
The evening ends with Silky with his trademark fast-fire interchanges with the audience, and crazed guitar-accompanied songs, mostly improvised, and sometimes about named members of the audience. All done with high energy and constant laughs.
Hard to imagine a more hugely varied array of comic talents!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****
