A night that most agreed was 'strange but good.' Al Dawes got us off to a good start by reminding us that we were in the post christmas gloom and that this was oficially the most poverty stricken and depressing week of the year. (He told us, by the way, it wasn't just that his very appearance remined us of the fact.)
Don Moses was up first trying another new 5 minutes to hone his compere skills for later in the year (He's bringing Tim Vine to Newcastle- check the link to his site). Unlike last week, not all the topical material hit home, the danger of talking about the news is not everyone's heard it.
Ben Davis, another charming student, got into the spirit of the theme (The Great Outdoors.) telling us of the uber-hiker who introduced him to the magic of G.O.R.P. - Good Old Raisins and Peanuts.
With only 5 acts we'd gone for a show of 2 halves, and we realise now people need that extra break, as Al was warming up the crowd for the next act, half of them were alread in the loo. Even the soundman dissapperaed for a quick wee, but so did the next act himself so it didn't matter too much. Finishing part 1, was John Scott who'd popped down for a relaxing drink and agreed to go on to fill the gaps caused by the dirty no-shows (You know who you are.) A relaxed John started with some audience banter, but John found himself in a comedy cul-de-sac, when Mark's proudest acheivement was to have reached 21 (and not because of some hilariously life threatening illness.) Thankfully, John's a pro and knows when to give up on the wasters in our audience and tell some of his own jokes.
Part two and Pete was up to compere, showing his knowledge of the great outdoors through the example of the swiss army knife. The most popular tools are the corkscrew and the bottle opener, so for most people it's essentially a booze stick. Callum Cramb (as act rather than 3rd host) was up next with new material and old routines. This is where the night started to get a little weird. A lack luster response to Cal's new material, and Pete's failure to get much more fun out of a camping tool prompted them to say 'We're the backbone of LLC- and we've been the worst things on tonight.' A good natured audience seemed happy enough - they'd obviously seen worse acts who didn't even have the decency to apologise. But the negativity must have hit Sean Mcloughlin. As Al said in his blog;
"Last night at long live comedy, we had a performance from a young lad. He began to die on stage, which is a common thing amongst comedians, so he'd better get used to it. It was - if such a thing is possible - the funniest death I have ever seen. He realised he was getting nowhere, and just launched on a tirade about just how crap everything is. He had absolutely no idea how good he was. As Pete later commented, he turned around his performance through the gift of spectacular self-loathing."
I don't believe this for a moment. Sean knew exactly what he was doing, he'd planned this hilarious 'death' from the start.
To finish the night Tom Roche got us back to the land of real planned comedy with some good old fashioned jokes. Sensing the odd mood of the night Tom gave us a snappy 10 minutes and left before things got weird again. Leaving Pete to round things off, perhaps focusing on the negative Pete apologised for the whole thing and for stealling £2 from everyone. Then Callum got up, not to chastise the idiot, but to join in offering his apology.
To our relief no one thought it had been a bad night, just one with peculiar, but interesting ups and downs- most of which were funny, if sometimes for the wrong reasons.
Strange but good.
