'Fury' from 'Strange' audience 'Turner'd out for the best.

Last night saw another good turn out at Long Live, with the fan club of the evening there to see LLC first timer Ashleigh Davison. Graham Oakes as the MC got the audience smiling but not quite laughing freely before John Scott came to the stage to try out some new material. It became clear quite quickly that the audience were either afraid to laugh or in fact saving their laughter for their friend, either way, as John pointed out; "a noise outside got a bigger laugh than the man on stage" and closed his set telling the audience to never return.

Laughing by the end. 

George Zach was up next, having to reassure the audience at one point that his next joke was indeed going to be funny, having tested it many times before. They laughed, so there was still hope for the night yet.

Graham was back for the second section, spending an above average length of time trying to loosen the crowd up. After his attempts in the first section to bring laughs from a man who couldn't grow facial hair in one area, he found greater success discovering the working relationships of the crowd. Having now laughed a number of times, Andy Fury came to the stage to a warmer audience, bringing many laughs while also discovering where his material on the Great North Run peaked. Up next was Jake Donaldson from Leeds who, despite offending the once timid crowd with a quip about the Sports Direct Arena, managed to keep the laughs going. Closing the section was Tim Strange, who revealed his secret for men to look like they work out, without actually working out.

The joke competition started the third section. The themes for the joke were 'the pope' and 'teapot'. After a number of jokes about tea bagging, the joke that won might have actually been the least clever:

"Here's a difference between the pope and a tea pot. They're spelt differently"

That joke won a bottle of wine.

The penultimate act was Sean Turner, who teased the audience with impressions and then told them he wasn't going to do them. He then did his impressions.

Closing the night was Ashleigh Davison, who brought along her observations of Sunderland and a whole host of words and and facts about herself that her mum (who was in the audience) had never heard before.