Dave Spikey - Live Review

If laughter is the best medicine, the first half of Dave Spikey’s show should probably be classed as a sedative.

Though he was getting chuckles from some quarters, his familiar observations about tired subjects almost sent me dozing. Perhaps the fact that the very title of this show is based on a cliché should have set off alarm bells, but his comments on daytime TV shows, ‘claim for blame’ ads and the security questions they ask you at airports could form a checklist of the hackneyed.

There are gags about Viagra (‘can you get it over the counter?’), about putting together Ikea furniture, and a long routine about dobbers - obese ‘working’ class people ironically clad in Sports Direct gear, sunburning on their drink-fuelled holidays to Benidorm – that gets dangerously close to ‘my wife’s so fat…’ gags. The audience certainly went with it, chuckling at lines as simple as him introducing this dobber family as ‘Mum, Dad and their daughter Chantelle Demi’, but it’s all no-brainer stuff.

He’s a jolly fellow, and sells his material with his well-known Chorley charm, but Spikey’s reliance on reporting back on things he’s seen or overheard adds to the predictability – even if you suspect the sign ‘Guard Dogs Operate At This Hospital’ doesn’t really exist with that wording.

For the newspaper cuttings he’s compiled, he’s brought the evidence, getting laughs from such stories as the one about a llama running amok, headlined ‘Llama Drama Ding Dong’ – but the sub-editor who wrote that pun surely did all the work. This section shows more flair when Spikey finds accidentally bad or ambiguous writing than simply repeating funny headlines.

Stories from his time as an NHS haematologist raise the mood – as well as acting as a very good advertisement for going private, as the terrifying-if-true yarns about dozy nurses would make the perfect basis for Spikey’s next sitcom. But his passion for the British institution where he worked for so long is apparent.

Tales from his own youth also entertain – even if he can’t help wallowing in some easy sweet-shop nostalgia about Blackjacks. Spikey is a natural raconteur, upbeat but subtly mocking, and I’d rather hear these first-hand anecdotes over his opinion on the Cillit Bang adverts any day.

Having said that his closing routine is a stormer, picking out ridiculous lyrics, mainly from female middle-of-the-road balladeers of the Eighties. There are some howlers here, even if Spikey disingenuously ignores the deliberate irony of likes such as Pink Floyd’s ‘We don’t need no education’.

At two interval-free hours, this final night of Spikey’s 110-date tour felt like something of a slog, because for all of his cheeky charisma a good chunk of the material felt crushingly familiar. Though as the likes of Michael McIntyre and Spikey’s one-time colleague Peter Kay have found to the benefit of their bank balances, the familiar certainly sells.

Stefano Paolini - Live Review

As a second-generation Italian immigrant, Stefano Paolini understandably bases much of his act on the gap between his parents’ culture and his own. Admittedly, some of this takes the most obvious route of simply mimicking their accents – but he has the vocal talents to pull off these mini-characterisations with aplomb.

He’s also a pretty mean beatboxer, which never fails to please a crowd, and in one of his best moments combines this with a typically playful take on one enduring Italian stereotype, with a gangsta rap song as if performed by a tight-lipped Mafioso.

His is an evocatively light-hearted look at his family and national culture, and what it’s like to be an underachieving thirtysomething still living at home with his quirky parents. It makes the routine more about witty imagry than killer punchlines, so expect an amiably amusing ramble, rather than a comic romp that puts your sides at risk But he’s a personable guide through his own situation, even if the approach is relatively low-key.

When he works away from the personal and in more universal territory, however, the comparative weakness of the writing is more exposed, and the set notably lulls. An observational routine about how to tell whether someone’s posh or not is a stand-out, but the rest is rather ordinary.

Bennett Arron - Live Review

Mild-mannered Arron is one of the most innocuous comedians on the circuit. His set, which has barely changed in a decade, revolves around his unusual Welsh-Jewish heritage – ‘so I was never quite sure why I was being beaten up,’ he says in typically self-effacing style.

He never swears, although does indulge in mild innuendo about his failings in bed, or sweetly teases the pensioners who advertise in the personals section of Mature Times. There’s no bite to any of his material, which laps gently over the audience and runs the real risk of seeming bland.

Some nicely crafted lines mitigate this, although for every two elegantly inventive gems, there’s probably one terribly clunky pun. But Arron’s soft charm and cheery, almost cheesy, smile usually carries him through, in a performance that’s notably understated.

Mark Maier - Live Review

It’s unusual for a stand-up with a relatively modest profile to hire out a 535-seater theatre. But it is surely far cheaper for Mark Maier to book the Bloomsbury for a night than to take a show to the Edinburgh Fringe, even if its career-enhancing potential isn’t so great. For a little more money, he could even have got decent sound engineering, rather than the dull, tinny set-up which would have shamed a village hall.

Did he have enough pulling power to fill the venue? Well, the balcony remained unused, but Maier and support act Bennett Arron more than half-filled the stalls, with a little help from friends. It wasn’t the usual comedy crowd either: predominantly Jewish, and with a much wider age range than you’ll find at the Comedy Store.

Mild-mannered Arron is one of the most innocuous comedians on the circuit. His set, which has barely changed in a decade, revolves around his unusual Welsh-Jewish heritage – ‘so I was never quite sure why I was being beaten up,’ he says in typically self-effacing style.

He never swears, although does indulge in mild innuendo about his failings in bed, or sweetly teases the pensioners who advertise in the personals section of Mature Times. There’s no bite to any of his material, which laps gently over the audience and runs the real risk of seeming bland.

Some nicely crafted lines mitigate this, although for every two elegantly inventive gems, there’s probably one terribly clunky pun. But Arron’s soft charm and cheery, almost cheesy, smile usually carries him through, in a performance that’s notably understated.

What he doesn’t bring to this gig is a sense of occasion befitting the bigger stage; a failing that also besets Maier’s hour-long Nine O’Clock Schmooze set, in which a Jewish man tells a Jewish audience what Jewish people are like. It doesn’t completely exclude gentiles, for many of the behavioural traits and childhood tales are universal, but it does help if you have some awareness of the culture.

I certainly learned a few new Yiddish terms, ‘schluff’ being the best: an onomatopoeic word for an afternoon nap, slumped exhaustedly in the armchair. As for the Jewish traits he explores, they tend to involve a love of kvetching and of food – in that order – and a compulsion to try to spot fellow Jews in any situation – except if they’ve done something so bad it makes the news - even if you have nothing in common with them.

At best it’s Seinfeld-like observational comedy – almost literally so in the section about ‘regifting’ unwanted presents that echoes a plot from his sitcom. Witheringly accurate descriptions of familiar behaviour have the crowd chuckling along, although Maier largely avoids landing any more substantial punchlines that would convert those mildly amused knowing chortles into something heartier. This feels like reinforcement of traits that are already known, rather than shedding light onto hitherto unexposed conduct.

The apparently oxymoronic combination of insecurity and confidence seems to be the qualities that Maier marks out as particularly Jewish – which is perhaps why the faith has produced so many great stand-ups. Maier occasionally tosses out a pithy gag that temporarily puts him in that category, though generally the set is more matter-of-factly conversational to generate too many fine one-liners.

Maier also under-uses his greatest talent: the chameleon-like ability to morph into the characters that populate his story. The hilarious grimaces of the elderly Jewish clientele of the cruise ships he sometimes works on are particularly graphically realised, as is his sharp, stereotypically Germanic grandmother.

We do get one fully formed character to open the set, Roni Shimoni, an arrogantly uncommunicative Israeli army officer making a visit to London. His apparent humourlessness contributes to a wonderfully haughty comic attitude, even if the gags are as hit and miss as a rocket attack on Gaza.

As a stand-up, Maier is far more amiable, and his material enjoyably entertaining – but it still felt like a fringe show, whatever the size of the venue.

Patrick Monahan - Live Review

They always insisted it wasn't the X Factor for comics, and in the end the ratings proved that. Show Me The Funny, the ITV series that sought people who could combine the talents of stand-up comedy and finding people called Michelle in a Liverpool street, struggled with audiences around the 2million mark.

Such figures could spell problems for the contractually obligated follow-up tour and DVD, recorded last night at the Bloomsbury Theatre, where a noticeable number of the 535 seats remained unsold.

Welshman Dan Mitchell, who came third in the competition, opened the show. He used to work at an undertaker’s, and maintains the funereal delivery to this day. The slow pacing is a mixed blessing – when he has something quirky and offbeat to say, the gaps add an air of expectation. When his material  is more mundane, which it unfortunately often is, it adds only frustration.

The hope must be that his success in the competition will give him confidence in his writing, for as the 20-minute set progressed, he found distinctive laughs in explaining how he gets so lonely he picks fights with cereal boxes, and in giving us an introductory lesson to some of the stranger vocabulary in the Welsh language.

But he struggles to get everybody on board with these ideas, which might explain his broader, unoriginal '...and that was just my dad!' style material earlier on – but even that button-pressing didn’t quite engage, as he’s not one of comedy’s warmest characters. There is some good stuff here, but whether it will win out remains to be seen.

The intense scrutiny of the talent show seems to have had a positive effect second-placed Stevenson, who had the best gig of the night. While her lack of invention means she is unlikely to make a seismic impact on the art of comedy, she has consolidated her broad-appeal material into a brisk, efficient club set with plenty of laughs.

She can, at times, seem like a breathing version of Heat magazine - bitching about bad fashion choices and physical imperfections. But since she puts herself first in the firing line for such jibes, she can be forgiven.

Topics include the 'yummy mummies' of the North London enclave she calls home, her own suggestions of what Olay's first sign of ageing might be, and a shaggy dog (or should that be rat) story about a rodent infestation in her kitchen, UB40-style. It’s jaunty enough, although she often sounds like any number of other comedians since there are no great leaps of observation or imagination.

Punchlines come frequently, though, and there’s likely to be one to tickle you before too long. Describing herself as being ‘like a fine wine’ comes with as many tags as a school photo on Facebook, some rather witty. The set is sporadically spiced up with near-the-knuckle lines that elicit a gasp as well as a laugh – though you wouldn’t really describe her a ‘shock comic’, it’s just one item on the smorgasbord of styles she offers.

TV winner Patrick Monahan has a reputation for two things: hugging almost everyone in his audience and overrunning dreadfully. The constraints of filming meant he couldn’t do the former, although you could sense him itching to escape the confines of the stage, and yes, he did go on far, far too long.

It meant approximately 90-minute set felt rather dull, and so padded frequently elicited only minor titters from the audience. There’s no denying what a warm, engaging man he is – but good company does not make to for a comedy routine you’ll want preserved on DVD for repeat viewing, even after the editors have worked their magic.

He tries to embrace the audience verbally, if he can’t do it physically, forever urging us to ‘look at this guy!’ as he projects personalities onto punters. His enthusiasm is childlike, and sometimes his comedy is, too, for example when he describes pretending to be shot when the starter’s pistol went off at school sports day. It’s hardly comedy gold, though, and much of his other routines suffer the same fate, of being charming but not hilarious - from being offered knock-off DVDs to eating at Greggs. And please, please can we have a moratorium on routines when comics encounter young people on buses and are surprised by the way they walk and talk?

His routine about Arab Spring uprisings is more interesting, especially given his own Iranian family roots, but Monahan’s never going to be a political comic, but rather a seeker of the silly in media coverage. Likewise, the taunts he suffered at school in the Eighties when Iran was always in the news, and always for the wrong reasons, is only skirted around.

After a largely lacklustre 75 minutes or so of all this, the set finally springs into life, as ‘Mon-and-on-ahan’ starts dragging people out of their seats to illustrate one of his ideas, how men should behave in a nightclub. This demonstrates his undeniable allure as a people person, as he bounces off them in celebration, rather than mockery. It’s a full-on, Generation Game spirit, reminiscent of Michael Barrymore when he hid only his sexuality, not skeletons, in his closet.

You might feel that somewhere there’s a Club 18-30 night missing its tour rep, but Monahan really kicks his otherwise moribund routine into action for the finale. Whether this is comedy is debatable, but it showcases his potential as a gregarious host in search of a prime-time, shiny-floor show where he can really work his magic.

Tiffany Stevenson - Live Review

They always insisted it wasn't the X Factor for comics, and in the end the ratings proved that. Show Me The Funny, the ITV series that sought people who could combine the talents of stand-up comedy and finding people called Michelle in a Liverpool street, struggled with audiences around the 2million mark.

Such figures could spell problems for the contractually obligated follow-up tour and DVD, recorded last night at the Bloomsbury Theatre, where a noticeable number of the 535 seats remained unsold.

Welshman Dan Mitchell, who came third in the competition, opened the show. He used to work at an undertaker’s, and maintains the funereal delivery to this day. The slow pacing is a mixed blessing – when he has something quirky and offbeat to say, the gaps add an air of expectation. When his material  is more mundane, which it unfortunately often is, it adds only frustration.

The hope must be that his success in the competition will give him confidence in his writing, for as the 20-minute set progressed, he found distinctive laughs in explaining how he gets so lonely he picks fights with cereal boxes, and in giving us an introductory lesson to some of the stranger vocabulary in the Welsh language.

But he struggles to get everybody on board with these ideas, which might explain his broader, unoriginal '...and that was just my dad!' style material earlier on – but even that button-pressing didn’t quite engage, as he’s not one of comedy’s warmest characters. There is some good stuff here, but whether it will win out remains to be seen.

The intense scrutiny of the talent show seems to have had a positive effect second-placed Stevenson, who had the best gig of the night. While her lack of invention means she is unlikely to make a seismic impact on the art of comedy, she has consolidated her broad-appeal material into a brisk, efficient club set with plenty of laughs.

She can, at times, seem like a breathing version of Heat magazine - bitching about bad fashion choices and physical imperfections. But since she puts herself first in the firing line for such jibes, she can be forgiven.

Topics include the 'yummy mummies' of the North London enclave she calls home, her own suggestions of what Olay's first sign of ageing might be, and a shaggy dog (or should that be rat) story about a rodent infestation in her kitchen, UB40-style. It’s jaunty enough, although she often sounds like any number of other comedians since there are no great leaps of observation or imagination.

Punchlines come frequently, though, and there’s likely to be one to tickle you before too long. Describing herself as being ‘like a fine wine’ comes with as many tags as a school photo on Facebook, some rather witty. The set is sporadically spiced up with near-the-knuckle lines that elicit a gasp as well as a laugh – though you wouldn’t really describe her a ‘shock comic’, it’s just one item on the smorgasbord of styles she offers.

TV winner Patrick Monahan has a reputation for two things: hugging almost everyone in his audience and overrunning dreadfully. The constraints of filming meant he couldn’t do the former, although you could sense him itching to escape the confines of the stage, and yes, he did go on far, far too long.

It meant approximately 90-minute set felt rather dull, and so padded frequently elicited only minor titters from the audience. There’s no denying what a warm, engaging man he is – but good company does not make to for a comedy routine you’ll want preserved on DVD for repeat viewing, even after the editors have worked their magic.

He tries to embrace the audience verbally, if he can’t do it physically, forever urging us to ‘look at this guy!’ as he projects personalities onto punters. His enthusiasm is childlike, and sometimes his comedy is, too, for example when he describes pretending to be shot when the starter’s pistol went off at school sports day. It’s hardly comedy gold, though, and much of his other routines suffer the same fate, of being charming but not hilarious - from being offered knock-off DVDs to eating at Greggs. And please, please can we have a moratorium on routines when comics encounter young people on buses and are surprised by the way they walk and talk?

His routine about Arab Spring uprisings is more interesting, especially given his own Iranian family roots, but Monahan’s never going to be a political comic, but rather a seeker of the silly in media coverage. Likewise, the taunts he suffered at school in the Eighties when Iran was always in the news, and always for the wrong reasons, is only skirted around.

After a largely lacklustre 75 minutes or so of all this, the set finally springs into life, as ‘Mon-and-on-ahan’ starts dragging people out of their seats to illustrate one of his ideas, how men should behave in a nightclub. This demonstrates his undeniable allure as a people person, as he bounces off them in celebration, rather than mockery. It’s a full-on, Generation Game spirit, reminiscent of Michael Barrymore when he hid only his sexuality, not skeletons, in his closet.

You might feel that somewhere there’s a Club 18-30 night missing its tour rep, but Monahan really kicks his otherwise moribund routine into action for the finale. Whether this is comedy is debatable, but it showcases his potential as a gregarious host in search of a prime-time, shiny-floor show where he can really work his magic.

Dan Mitchell - Live Review

They always insisted it wasn't the X Factor for comics, and in the end the ratings proved that. Show Me The Funny, the ITV series that sought people who could combine the talents of stand-up comedy and finding people called Michelle in a Liverpool street, struggled with audiences around the 2million mark.

Such figures could spell problems for the contractually obligated follow-up tour and DVD, recorded last night at the Bloomsbury Theatre, where a noticeable number of the 535 seats remained unsold.

Welshman Dan Mitchell, who came third in the competition, opened the show. He used to work at an undertaker’s, and maintains the funereal delivery to this day. The slow pacing is a mixed blessing – when he has something quirky and offbeat to say, the gaps add an air of expectation. When his material  is more mundane, which it unfortunately often is, it adds only frustration.

The hope must be that his success in the competition will give him confidence in his writing, for as the 20-minute set progressed, he found distinctive laughs in explaining how he gets so lonely he picks fights with cereal boxes, and in giving us an introductory lesson to some of the stranger vocabulary in the Welsh language.

But he struggles to get everybody on board with these ideas, which might explain his broader, unoriginal '...and that was just my dad!' style material earlier on – but even that button-pressing didn’t quite engage, as he’s not one of comedy’s warmest characters. There is some good stuff here, but whether it will win out remains to be seen.

The intense scrutiny of the talent show seems to have had a positive effect second-placed Stevenson, who had the best gig of the night. While her lack of invention means she is unlikely to make a seismic impact on the art of comedy, she has consolidated her broad-appeal material into a brisk, efficient club set with plenty of laughs.

She can, at times, seem like a breathing version of Heat magazine - bitching about bad fashion choices and physical imperfections. But since she puts herself first in the firing line for such jibes, she can be forgiven.

Topics include the 'yummy mummies' of the North London enclave she calls home, her own suggestions of what Olay's first sign of ageing might be, and a shaggy dog (or should that be rat) story about a rodent infestation in her kitchen, UB40-style. It’s jaunty enough, although she often sounds like any number of other comedians since there are no great leaps of observation or imagination.

Punchlines come frequently, though, and there’s likely to be one to tickle you before too long. Describing herself as being ‘like a fine wine’ comes with as many tags as a school photo on Facebook, some rather witty. The set is sporadically spiced up with near-the-knuckle lines that elicit a gasp as well as a laugh – though you wouldn’t really describe her a ‘shock comic’, it’s just one item on the smorgasbord of styles she offers.

TV winner Patrick Monahan has a reputation for two things: hugging almost everyone in his audience and overrunning dreadfully. The constraints of filming meant he couldn’t do the former, although you could sense him itching to escape the confines of the stage, and yes, he did go on far, far too long.

It meant approximately 90-minute set felt rather dull, and so padded frequently elicited only minor titters from the audience. There’s no denying what a warm, engaging man he is – but good company does not make to for a comedy routine you’ll want preserved on DVD for repeat viewing, even after the editors have worked their magic.

He tries to embrace the audience verbally, if he can’t do it physically, forever urging us to ‘look at this guy!’ as he projects personalities onto punters. His enthusiasm is childlike, and sometimes his comedy is, too, for example when he describes pretending to be shot when the starter’s pistol went off at school sports day. It’s hardly comedy gold, though, and much of his other routines suffer the same fate, of being charming but not hilarious - from being offered knock-off DVDs to eating at Greggs. And please, please can we have a moratorium on routines when comics encounter young people on buses and are surprised by the way they walk and talk?

His routine about Arab Spring uprisings is more interesting, especially given his own Iranian family roots, but Monahan’s never going to be a political comic, but rather a seeker of the silly in media coverage. Likewise, the taunts he suffered at school in the Eighties when Iran was always in the news, and always for the wrong reasons, is only skirted around.

After a largely lacklustre 75 minutes or so of all this, the set finally springs into life, as ‘Mon-and-on-ahan’ starts dragging people out of their seats to illustrate one of his ideas, how men should behave in a nightclub. This demonstrates his undeniable allure as a people person, as he bounces off them in celebration, rather than mockery. It’s a full-on, Generation Game spirit, reminiscent of Michael Barrymore when he hid only his sexuality, not skeletons, in his closet.

You might feel that somewhere there’s a Club 18-30 night missing its tour rep, but Monahan really kicks his otherwise moribund routine into action for the finale. Whether this is comedy is debatable, but it showcases his potential as a gregarious host in search of a prime-time, shiny-floor show where he can really work his magic.

Angelos Epithemiou - Live Review

Angelos Epithemiou owes a big debt to Bob Mortimer. Not only did he pluck the character straight from the sketch comedy circuit – or burger van, to propagate the mythology – and on to TV, but his influence can be heavily felt in his protégé’s debut tour.

At times, it almost feels like a Reeves & Mortimer tribute act, with elements from Big Night Out and Shooting Stars such as the unanswerable quiz questions, the inanimate objects becoming musical instruments, and the desk adorned with kitsch tat. Even ‘What’s on the end of the stick, Vic?’ has been reinvented as ‘What’s in the bag, Angelos?’ with its own singalong theme.

Yet other parts of the show are unmistakeably Epithemiou’s own, branded with his lazy reluctance to be an entertainer. He’s keen to press on and get this irritating show business over with so he can get home to watch the 30-Stone Teenager. As he stands awkwardly before us in his grubby anorak, too-short trousers and too-long tie, he dourly admits that he’s only got three jokes to cover the whole show, ‘so we’re all in the shit.’

It’s comments like this that get him branded an ‘anti-comedian’, wilfully shunning any obvious comic devices as a cheap cop-out. While Dan Renton Skinner’s creation certainly shares some of that philosophy, deftly underplaying the delivery, he doesn’t abandon every trick.

In fact, the bits of the show that go down the best are about as old-school as you can get: a traditional ‘what’s the difference between…’ pub gag and a section in which he attempts impressions demanded by the crowd – to surprisingly good effect, even if ‘Simon Weston’ was a suggestion too far.

Improvised banter is another of Skinner’s strong suits, as demonstrated in the Q&A session. Tagged on to normal stand-up gigs, these rarely work particularly well, but here, when he treated the questions with the contempt the deserve, there were laughs to be had.

Like Reeves and Mortimer, Epithemiou is at his best when corralling the audience so we’re all in one big in-joke, and he is especially successful in quite a gang-show feel going in his musical section, though he does dissipate that energy in the sluggish quiz Epithemiou Or Bust?, in which an punter is asked impossible questions before taking part in a ridiculously silly stunt. Sound familiar?

It’s all in keeping with the generally patchy feel of the show, which isn’t quite sure of what it wants to be. When he’s good, Epithemiou is brilliant, with unexpected lines delivered with perfect judgment, but sometimes the character’s lack of focus rubs off on the material.

The promise of ‘…and friends’ is something of a misleading one, as this mostly refers to the very small circle of chums he talks about on stage, including his ‘kind of’ girlfriend Margaret and the strange Ian, whom he represents by a badly-stitched ventriloquist’s dummy. Let’s just say Nina Conti has nothing to fear… There was one guest slot, though: Nick Mohammed as his camply overexciteable memory man Mr Swallow, who takes so long on digressions he never got to any memory tricks. But this roundabout approach didn’t resonate with the audience, and he got a cold reception in such a limited spot. The Vanessa Mae jokes started to win them round, but he lost it again by adding lyrics to the Jurassic Park theme tune. It’s like Anita Dobson all over again…

But there was no doubt this was Epithemiou’s night, and while the tone was uneven, he does cut an intriguing, distinctive and frequently funny character.

Nick Mohammed - Live Review

Angelos Epithemiou owes a big debt to Bob Mortimer. Not only did he pluck the character straight from the sketch comedy circuit – or burger van, to propagate the mythology – and on to TV, but his influence can be heavily felt in his protégé’s debut tour.

At times, it almost feels like a Reeves & Mortimer tribute act, with elements from Big Night Out and Shooting Stars such as the unanswerable quiz questions, the inanimate objects becoming musical instruments, and the desk adorned with kitsch tat. Even ‘What’s on the end of the stick, Vic?’ has been reinvented as ‘What’s in the bag, Angelos?’ with its own singalong theme.

Yet other parts of the show are unmistakeably Epithemiou’s own, branded with his lazy reluctance to be an entertainer. He’s keen to press on and get this irritating show business over with so he can get home to watch the 30-Stone Teenager. As he stands awkwardly before us in his grubby anorak, too-short trousers and too-long tie, he dourly admits that he’s only got three jokes to cover the whole show, ‘so we’re all in the shit.’

It’s comments like this that get him branded an ‘anti-comedian’, wilfully shunning any obvious comic devices as a cheap cop-out. While Dan Renton Skinner’s creation certainly shares some of that philosophy, deftly underplaying the delivery, he doesn’t abandon every trick.

In fact, the bits of the show that go down the best are about as old-school as you can get: a traditional ‘what’s the difference between…’ pub gag and a section in which he attempts impressions demanded by the crowd – to surprisingly good effect, even if ‘Simon Weston’ was a suggestion too far.

Improvised banter is another of Skinner’s strong suits, as demonstrated in the Q&A session. Tagged on to normal stand-up gigs, these rarely work particularly well, but here, when he treated the questions with the contempt the deserve, there were laughs to be had.

Like Reeves and Mortimer, Epithemiou is at his best when corralling the audience so we’re all in one big in-joke, and he is especially successful in quite a gang-show feel going in his musical section, though he does dissipate that energy in the sluggish quiz Epithemiou Or Bust?, in which an punter is asked impossible questions before taking part in a ridiculously silly stunt. Sound familiar?

It’s all in keeping with the generally patchy feel of the show, which isn’t quite sure of what it wants to be. When he’s good, Epithemiou is brilliant, with unexpected lines delivered with perfect judgment, but sometimes the character’s lack of focus rubs off on the material.

The promise of ‘…and friends’ is something of a misleading one, as this mostly refers to the very small circle of chums he talks about on stage, including his ‘kind of’ girlfriend Margaret and the strange Ian, whom he represents by a badly-stitched ventriloquist’s dummy. Let’s just say Nina Conti has nothing to fear… There was one guest slot, though: Nick Mohammed as his camply overexciteable memory man Mr Swallow, who takes so long on digressions he never got to any memory tricks. But this roundabout approach didn’t resonate with the audience, and he got a cold reception in such a limited spot. The Vanessa Mae jokes started to win them round, but he lost it again by adding lyrics to the Jurassic Park theme tune. It’s like Anita Dobson all over again…

But there was no doubt this was Epithemiou’s night, and while the tone was uneven, he does cut an intriguing, distinctive and frequently funny character.

Robin Ince - Live Review

It would be tempting to describe Robin Ince's now annual jamboree of rationalism as a veritable galaxy of stars of comedy, music and science. Though this is exactly the sort of gig where someone would point out that a galaxy contains something of the order of 300 billion stars, which is slightly more than even this packed bill.

And they’re an eclectic bunch of performers in style and in motivation; even without factoring in childhood favourite Johnny Ball’s bizarrely anti-scientific climate change denial that attracted the deserved scorn of the audience. On that, more later.

Despite its name, Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People is more a celebration of scientific thinking than it is an easy bash at the God squad, although an atheist undercurrent is never far from the surface.

The key thing to note is that it is not a pure comedy event; indeed some of the comics seemed a little unsure of exactly how to play it, most trying something new with mixed results. In ambience, it’s similar to the Latitude outdoor festival – perhaps a Glastonbury for geeks that at times threatens to go on as long as the four-day rock festival itself; although more shambolic in its organisation.

As curator – the word ‘compere’ seems insufficient – Ince shambles on in the regulation pullover and distracted manor of a senior lecturer at a former polytechnic, sheath of redundant notes in his clutch. He explains that he’s a ‘polymath idiot’, eager learn but aware that every new nugget of knowledge opens up whole new horizons of ignorance. This set-up, in which he goes on to describe arguments with right-wing columnists such as Anne Coulter and Melanie Phillips, isn’t always that funny, but they do set out the ethos of the night, which is more important than any gags.

Opening act Chris Addison is a self-confessed dilettante, a liberal artsy type who doesn’t quite grasp science, which he proved with a silly jokes that started from an oversimplified idea of atomic theory, and involved several daft mimes of a frustrated T-Rex. Funny enough, though you could almost hear sphincters clenching at the mangled science.

Mind you, he made perfect sense compared to the jumbled banter singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock attempted between his two folky numbers, reducing the sold-out audience to a baffled silence.

Nine Lessons is probably one of the few gigs where scientists get a rock-star welcome, and the crowd was clearly delighted to see science writer Simon Singh, probably because he’s become a rationalists’ cause celebre since his dispute with chiropractors highlighted the stifling effect English libel laws have on free debate. He entertainingly debunked the notion that the Bible somehow contained concealed prophesies – put there like some supernatural wordsearch by the hand of God – by sharing another scientists’ research that equally prescient messages are concealed in that other holy book, Moby Dick. It’s the sort of witty, sharp, bullshit busting that was bound to play well with this audience.

Some of the comedians seemed overawed by that expectation, with more flustered delivery than usual. Shappi Khorsandi admitted that she was scatty – which she put down to being the mother of a young child – but eventually settled into some witty observations about assumptions people make about her race or religion, as if any of it really mattered.

After the British Humanist Association choir performed Tom Lehrer’s Christmas Carol came quirky psychologist Richard Wiseman, who was one of the highlights of the night; playfully exploding trickery with the aid of close-up magic and optical illusions. Even with examples that might be familiar, he’d add a sharp punchline – and another run-out of the preposterous ‘misheard lyrics’ to Carmina Burana is always a delight. Google Oh Four Tuna if you haen’t seen them.

The real lyrics of Cat Stevens’s Moonshadow were weird enough for physical comic Joanna Neary to mock by acting them out in a very literal dance routine, while genuine pop star John Otway brought the first half to an eccentrically rousing end with his Bunsen Burner song, his one hit and source of great pride.

After entertaining grumpiness from Ince, complaining about the lazy description of science as a ‘dry’ subject, tempered with his enthusiasm for bongo-playing physicist-cum-safecracker Richard Feynman, came Baba Brinkman, who flew in from Canada to perform an extract from his acclaimed Edinburgh show Rap Guide to Evolution, complete with call-and-response audience reaction. There aren’t many hip-hoppers who use words like ‘mitochondria’ and ‘phenotype’ in their rhymes – but Brinkman wasn’t just showing off for clever’s sake; this was intelligent, informative and, crucially, hugely entertaining.

Idiot savant Richard Herring began with his tried-and-tested routine about living his life unwaveringly by a random motto – an idea given added impetus given the atheist nature of the evening – before sharing some stories he wrote when a child of seven; a sweetly silly diversion from the science.

Guardian columnist Ben Goldacre then cracked through a sobering and illuminating mini-lecture on the lethal effects newspapers’ unscientific scaremongering about the MMR vaccine can have; the grim conclusions being sugared by Martin White And The Mystery Fax Machine Brass Band – who provided snippets of carols as walk-on music all night – performing a musical number about head-in-the-sand mentality.

Josie Long’s enthusiasm for facts perfectly reflected the mood of the evening, and her combination of breathless excitement at the possibility there might be something as wonderous as ghosts, combined with her pragmatic acceptance they don’t exist played out nicely with a silly experiment; though her adding a raft of punchlines to the playground gag ‘What do ghosts eat’ depending on who was telling it proved one of the most nuttily entertaining moments of the night.

But then things got weird, when Johnny Ball took to the stage, performing a mix of childish distractions and dated comedy (with the sort of gag that involve kilted Scotsmen and sixpenny ice-lollies), delivered with blustering enthusiasm but not always coherence. But doing a George Formby-style song about John Dalton’s atomic theory should have been the point at which he got off – both in terms of timekeeping and reputation.

But then he launched into a bizarre rant denying man-made climate change, at odds with not only the scientific community but also the ethos of the night that celebrated research over blind belief. Ball explained that farting spiders are the enemy of the atmosphere – I may have got his argument wrong, but that seemed to be one of his point – and that CO2’s not so bad because the carbon goes into plants and crustaceans’ shells. And was that a racist joke, I heard? ‘Crustaceans – and by that I don’t mean immigrants’.

He was patiently humoured for a while, then the audience were stunned into silence, until his assertion that leaked emails exposed climate change as a sham provoked the first heckle, which grew into a series of boos and slow handclaps.

Oh dear. Seems the night’s love of research didn’t quite go as far as checking out Ball’s credentials.

Peter Buckley Hill had to pick up the pieces of the fond childhood memories that had been shattered – and all credit to him, he did; even if his slot was truncated by Ball’s horrendous over-running. If anyone fits this bill, it’s PBH; not only has he the look of a mad inventor direct from Central Casting; he has a witty song all about Xmas and the scientific, mathematical and colloquial use of the 24th letter of the alphabet that just about wraps up every thread of Nine Lessons into one odd parcel.

Dara O Briain was another clear highlight, reflecting the audience’s obvious bemusement about the Ball outburst with skill and humour before launching into hilarious material about when his scientific mind comes into contact with some of the nonsense in the world; the midwives of the NCT pre-natal classes especially. This was all new material, but it’s fully-formed, hilarious storytelling with a pertinent point. If this is indicative of his 2010 tour, get your tickets now.

And to close – at a time when the audience was perhaps thinking it would never come – Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden singing their Peace And Quiet number that turns out to be anything but.

A weird night, courtesy of Johnny Ball, but one with the message intact. Curiosity has been celebrated, and the thirst for knowledge renewed in an audience already that way inclined. Shared values have been reinforced, and a community spirit reinforced – just like a real religious service; but without the…. Oh, never mind. This was never really about knocking that camp anyway. Now the climate change deniers, that’s a different story….

Al Pitcher - Live Review

‘This could just be an overweight ginger bloke from New Zealand showing holiday snaps of a place where you live.’ So Al Pitcher warns at the start of his current show, a PowerPoint presentation of snaps he’s taken during the day of the gig.

Indeed, for some stretches this is pretty much exactly what we do get as Pitcher desperately tries to ad lib something out of often ordinary pictures: a Greggs store, a few kids arsing about for the camera, or shoppers milling around. He tries hard, but there’s often not much to say apart from an offhand glib observation, as attempts to impose comic meaning on the mundane. There’s a limit to just how much you can spin, for example, a whiteboard listing tickets for London tourist attractions or a picture of workmen standing around idly.

That, though, is the risk of a show that he reminds us is a one-off; created just for tonight. Sometimes the inspiration isn’t going to come on cue.

Sensibly, though, the day’s snaps are interspersed with some of the best from his travels round the UK, and indeed the world. India, Australia, Wolverhampton – they’re all here. Having been filtered, these images do provide more consistent laughs, sometimes in Pitcher’s commentary, sometimes in the image itself. He certainly owes a debt to a few creative graffitists around the world, or the prankster who put up a plaque in the ‘Democratic Republic of Galway’.

Easy-going Pitcher takes the rough with the smooth, though, revelling in the loose structure he’s set himself. He enjoys bantering with the audience, encouraging them to contribute back, and he certainly creates some comic highs as he winds up the front-row punter with the audacity to need the toilet, or probes a little too deeply into the love life of a girl a few seats along.

He’s got an open, laid-back demeanour that works well with such fluidity; although its sometimes at odds with material where he appears to be trying too hard. A brief flight of fantasy about midgets, for example, seems unnatural compared to the whimsical conviction someone like Ross Noble or Noel Fielding might bring to a similar routine. And his constant affirmations of the show’s supposedly ‘uplifting’ message seem an unwarranted hard sell for the feelgood factor, when it’s really just a mix of daft and everyday photos.

Ignoring that, there are some playful pieces that provide good chuckles. There’s a very nice take on the New Zealand-Australia rivalry, a ‘what’s the deal with bus shelters?’ bit that overcomes its initial blandness to become a fine example of observational stand-up and the myriad of health and safety notices he’s spotted provide a few gems.

Pitcher seems to have taken a quantity over quality approach, though – chuck enough material at the audience, and some of it will stick. As a result the show’s too long and decidedly scrappy, with plenty of lulls. But also enough peaks to keep proceedings entertaining.

It wasn’t polished, but as the audience knew why, they happily to bask in that unique shared experience he promised from the get-go. Rather than a meticulously premeditated comedy show, Al Pitcher’s Picture Show feels more like having a laugh with an old mate who you’re so happy to see again you can readily overlook the dips in conversation.