No Straightjacket Required (3:30PM)
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you funnier. So join him as he truly laughs in the face of death, illness and obsession.
Freedom Come, Freedom Go! (6:30PM)
90 days detention. Police upset by insects. Man arrested for chalking “Are we free?” on pavement. Stop and search outside Liberty exhibition. ID cards. CCTV. Snooping databases. Protest illegalised. Extradition. Torture. Tom Read tackles our disappearing freedoms and fights back.
The Yo-Yo Club All Star Showcase (9PM)
A spectacular showcase of fantastic acts, hosted by the inimitable Cody Chevron, with help from Colin Brisket, Wild Will Morris, the finest burlesquery by Kittie Cointreau, comedic poetical musings from Julian Daniel, headlined by musical maestro Matt Tiller!
Sunday at Fab was indeed quite fab, a great mix of styles, four of the shows were great, one not so much. Highlights included Julian Daniel and Marvin Cheeseman (what a name! Is it real?!), two deadpan Mancunians doing poetic comedy, Phil Ellis, a kind of young Harry Hill crossed with John Cleese giving us an OLD REAL SLIDESHOW of family pics and brilliantly skewing them. Matt Tiller is like a jollier musical Mark from Peep Show. I've seen him a few times now, he plays the guitar and sings ditties about awkward social situations, it's quite genius.
Wednesday at the Frog&Bucket involved watching Jason Cook's new creation, Fear, which was great but not free...so I shall move on to the late-night Asylum which I got a free ticket to through the club's mailing list. Highlight of this was an amazing, very likeable Australian eye-watering magic comedian. He got 2 audience members to come on stage and hold either end of a string of handkerchiefs he'd tied together and pull them through his nose! Next he hammered a nail up a nostril telling us it was millimetres from his brain, and got another brave (female) audience member to protract it using her teeth! Good job he was fit, all punky with muscles and tattoos! Later he dislocated many joints to squeeze through a tennis racquet. Yes, his whole body passed through! His mix of slapstick wackiness really whipped the up-for-it crowd into a frenzy, I have seen him and many similar acts in Edinburgh many times (sooooooo passe there during the Fringe!) but the intimacy of the venue and unexpectedness really made it ten times more powerful and surprising! A very exciting half an hour!
Last night I attended Mother Mac's for the first time, a small pub on gloomy Back Piccadilly which I'd always been extremely curious about. It was billed as a show celebrating the past 2 years of Beyond a Joke, the pub's monthly comedy night. Well, it was the most WONDERFULLY dingy place I've seen comedy in this great Victorian metropolis. All anaglypta, weird paint, clashing decor, "support our troops" posters, scowling landlady, huge pictures of old Manchester scenes and framed articles about when it burnt down and someone died/was murdered.
I lonesomely ventured upstairs to find a surprisingly large room with one strangely dim flourescent light working and elements of aborted possible sauna conversion present. The marvellously dark, ranty Citylife Comedian of the Year Eddie Hoo and fellow rollercoaster geek John Thorp got things off to a good start, and a punky gaggle of girls on a 30th birthday celebration who hadn't been able to get in at the Comedy Store were given a St. George flag vibrator by one of the acts who also owns a sex shop.
Highlight had to be finishing act I Like Fish who straightaway made us aware he couldn't be arsed coming on and persistantly ranted and angered his way through twenty minutes. He was quite unlike anyone, a good looking youngster shooting down everyone in flames for no particular reason! Extreme car-crash viewing!
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