Jerry Sadowitz - Live Review

Say what you like about Jerry Sadowitz, but he was way ahead of the curve. He was spouting racist, sexist, anti-disabled, homophobic, gratuitously sick jokes back in the distant days when comedy had a politically-correct face. Nowadays, every Ricky, Jimmy and Frankie uses the language of hate, only occasionally with a fig-leaf of irony.

Sadowitz thinks some of the newer generation have stolen his act. In which case there are several tramps shouting at bins on Sauchiehall Street who might have a case against Sadowitz. This is an expletive-heavy, semi-coherent but intense rant against the blacks, the Jews and the ‘spastics’ from a shambolic wreck of a man – as if these are in someway responsible for his abject sense of miserable worthlessness.

There’s no irony here, and no apologies either. Ricky Gervais might have caused a stramash for tweeting the word ‘mong’ – Sadowitz is only offended he didn’t use ‘mongaloid’, prompting the Glaswegian into a volley of bad taste that would keep an equality and diversity outreach worker in paperwork for months.

His humour is undeniably dark, but the intent – and reception – of his diatribe is in a greyer area. No moderate, sane person would agree with his hate-flecked outbursts suggesting all black people are criminals or the occupants of Dale Farm are all smelly, thieving pikeys. But you’re not supposed to. Sadowitz is not exactly a role model, unless you’re in the English Defence League.

However, the worse category of human – lower than any of the minority groups he so freely denigrates – are other comedians more famous, more successful, and probably more happy than him, having built career on spouting bland niceties. No surprise that in the curry house of comedians, he sees himself as the hottest vindaloo – while Michael McIntyre and Jack Whitehall are the plain boiled rice.

Nonetheless, as the nation has become used to a diet of stronger material, many people – certainly his particular audience – have become dulled to offence. It’s come to something when he cracks tasteless gags about Madelaine McCann and it seems almost hack, rather than appalling.

Certainly no one, even in liberal Brighton, stormed out, which Sadowitz might count as a failure. His uncompromising brutality still goes further than anyone else, and frogmarches into controversial topics anyone with a twinge of liberal conscience would give a wide berth to.

Yet some of his audience also appear to be refugees from the Chubby Brown fan club, cheering with no apparently sense of irony at some of the more extreme opinions. That grey area gets greyer with every bitter insult.

Such old-school non-PC comedy is usually frowned upon for targeting those less fortunate, but Sadowitz’s tacit defence might be that in his warped mind no one is lower than him. Certainly when he hurls racist insults at the Chinese, for example, he makes it quite clear that he’s punching upwards… he might call them ‘slitty-eyed’, but they will soon be our economic masters.

So, it’s an evening of unpalatable views, but is it funny? Again the jury’s out. Some jokes are too vile to be classed as any form of entertainment, and sometimes the material is not even a joke, just anger. But then, when you are not expecting it, an unexpected punch will land so hard, it will get you laughing.

But more than Sikipedia-style gags, this is an unflinching portrayal of hate, as intense and convincing as any dramatic Shakespearean actor. Not that Sadowitz would ever be so cowardly as to hide behind a character, of course: when he does adopt the persona of a Bronx Jew in the preamble, the material and style is exactly the same – even the accent keeps slipping back into his native Glaswegian Jew.

Many have hailed Sadowitz a comic genius. That’s surely overstating it, but he’s certainly uniquely uncompromising. Even as the number of shock-comics swells, he’s one of a kind. Thank fuck.

Craig Campbell - Live Review

Fresh from supporting Frankie Boyle last year, Craig Campbell has now embarked on his own debut stand-up UK tour. Although perhaps the Canadian would have been wise to follow Boyle’s example of booking a support act, as this very much was a show of two halves.

Campbell's laid-back approach to his performance caused a few problems this evening as his opening 20 minutes very swiftly just became a casual chat with some overly enthusiastic members of an otherwise reserved audience. As an experienced MC he should have sensed the crowd’s discomfort and boredom as he persisted in trying to find some nugget of humour in the comedy cul-de-sac that a Philadelphian fan was leading him down.

It took Campbell a full 15 minutes on stage before he reached for some material, which brought a welcome and overdue laugh from the audience. Alas this was all too short a break from the inane conversation with the American and we were soon returned to the tedium of chit chat about the weather Stateside in the winter.

The entire first half was marred by Campbell's insistence on playing MC rather than performing his show, despite some brilliant set pieces about his native Canada and his love of outdoors pursuits. The audience were flagging, which was not helped by his constant referral to the upcoming interval and the need to top up our glasses.

We were treated to a glimpse of the true nature of Campbell's comedy just before the break, with his take on the difference in police forces and border controls between North America and the UK. There are some genuinely interesting observations but the bite of the punchlines doesn't quite match the apparent passion Campbell has for this topic.

There is a clear sense that he has some real issues with governments and law enforcement but it feels like he is watering down his rage to maintain the likeable, laid-back persona he has mastered.

There is a sense of foreboding as Campbell announces that the length of the interval will be determined by how fast the audience return to their seats, as the night is already dragging and the prospect of a lengthy break causes some consternation as I overhear people complaining about possibly missing their trains home.

When we do return we are repaid with a completely different show. Campbell pulls out all the stops to ensure an amazing second half. He launches straight into joyous storytelling about some of the characters he's met on his travels. When the chatty fan from the first half starts to get involved Campbell swiftly responds with an exceptionally cutting put-down, which is rewarded by a huge roar of approval from the rest of the audience and welcome silence from the hecklers.

And we are straight back into some perfectly observed and hilarious storytelling. There is still a little interaction with the front row but this time Campbell has the balance spot on and uses any information gleaned to great effect, weaving a beautifully silly story from his time in the Caribbean after chatting to a Jamaican woman in the crowd. The story is so wonderfully performed and fits in so snugly with the rest of the material that it blends seamlessly with the rest of his narrative.

Even with tales that some may find it hard to relate to –  whether it be getting high on mushrooms or scaling the highest peak in North America – Campbell has the skill to illustrate the situation with such clever descriptions and physicality that you can't help but empathise and laugh along with the ridiculous incidents. He even has the audacity to say ‘I don't know if you've ever found yourself in this situation’ before he describes being stuck camping in the wilds for three days before an Inuit appears on a boat offering them halibut. Not something many of the Brighton crowd could claim to have done, but we all felt like we were right there with him.

By the end, any remaining negativity about the first section had been forgiven as Campbell more than proved himself as one of the most skilled storytellers and jokesmiths on the circuit.

Persephone Lewin - Live Review

It’s going to be quite hard to put into to words how execrably awful Peresphone Lewin’s tediously unfunny show is; but we’ll give it a go.

She’s a petite, half-Greek lady of certain age who plays with toys like a child at a tea party, putting on silly voices and getting them to answer back. That’s interspersed with odd films, bursts of trumpet-playing, odd accents, pseudo-burlesque dancing (in which she largely keeps her clothes on) and jokes older than Methusula.

How quirky, you might think. How delightful that an oddball can exhibit her individuality. How beautifully zany. No, no and no again, treble underlined. Nor does it pass the ‘so bad it’s good’ threshold. Lewin’s amateur lack of talent might get a few titters in a five-minute slot on a mixed bill, but in a full show it’s just painful. Actually, not even painful, as that would suggest some sort of emotional response. She just gets on with her little conversations and your job is to stare blankly on, trying your darndest not to let your mind wander, even though that’s the only way to get through this self-indulgent piffle.

To be fair to her, this was always going to be a tough gig. There were more stage managers than audience which, when she started, numbered just me. Awkward. So even if, with a decent audience, she could build on the nervous laughs that her strangeness could elicit, it was never going to happen here. At its peak she got five in, but the group of three left after ten minutes or so. Her recent appearance on Britain’s Got Talent has obviously done nothing for her fan base.

I started making notes about specific things that were wrong; how I winced at the French character being introduced by a burst of La Marseilles on accordion and the words ‘oh la la’, or the Australian getting Waltzing Matilda and a cork hat. But this is a show that’s beyond such point-by-point criticism. It would be like drowning in a vat of monkey spunk, and complaining about what colour they painted the vat.

The show has no atmosphere, and that’s not just down to the empty room. Her surrealism has no whimsy, while there’s no verve to make it whacky. It’s just a grown woman in her own little world, hosting a make-believe adventure with her toys – of which there must surely be a vanload, as one sketch alone gets through a dustbinful of props. She witters nonsensically some long-winded yarn about lifeboats, Vegas shows and a Cockney penguin. If a woman in the street was muttering such nonsense, you would cut her a very wide berth. All you can do here is think ‘what the fuck?!’ time after time. This nonsense lasted 75 patience-sapping minutes. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but garbage is apparently inexhaustible.

At one point, the male stagehand wanders on in kimono and bright orange pigtails and mimes playing the trumpet for a minute or two. Then goes off again. And that’s a highlight. We get a sub-Benny-Hill-at-his-lowest film in which she falls over in some mud and gets sprayed clean with a hose; a long audio interlude where we listen to a conversation while looking at three wigged footballs on microphone stands, then towards the end she blows into a teapot, inflating a concealed rubber glove.

Lewin’s own talent with the instrument is OK, though she hits quite a few duff notes. But then even Sachmo himself would probably have trouble playing with a stuffed penguin on his left hand. She is a fine player of the swanee whistle, that’s about the most praise I can find. That and her thick-skinned ability to persevere in the face of bewildered silence from the tiny audience, without any apparent shred of embarrassment. But I’m not sure that should be encouraged.

Phil Hammond - Live Review

Think of the Venn diagram where comedy overlaps with healthcare and you’d be forgiven for conjuring up countless appalling medical student revues, with their unedifying, juvenile obsessions with the more revolting functions of the human body. Thank god, then for Dr Phil Hammond, to add a bit of maturity to the genre, combining an insider’s knowledge of the NHS, an activist’s zeal for wanting it to work better, and a comedian’s eye for the absurd.

That’s not to say he’s without the more gross anatomical bent, but his tales of objects found up rectums, farting in the operating theatre and the perils of do-it-yourself penis enlargement are tackled with as much class as such subjects can ever be done with. Yet they might also be classed as risqué, especially given that he attracts a more conservative middle-class audience than many comedians.

The key thing to note is that the intelligent Dr Phil knows what he’s talking about – especially when it comes to debunking the dangerous myth that doctors are infallible. His tales from his training – where he was nicknamed Dr Ten Thumbs for his near-lethal lack of dexterity – make the old Doctor films look like training videos. It’s certainly enough for you to hope you never need to go into hospital again.

He still works, occasionally, as a GP in Bristol if only, he confesses, for the material; and as a regular media commentator on the problems of the health service, he’s certainly on top of the topic. It’s somewhat disappointing, then, to find that he spends a big chunk of the second half on shaggy-dog jokes, excused under the pretence that he’s discussing longevity factors such as sex, when they seem to belong more in a generic after-dinner speech than a comedy show with such a clear angle.

Admittedly, the gags are funny, and delivered with the inherent authority we misguidedly assign to medics, but his unique first-hand knowledge is always going to be more fascinating. And he does more than his fair share of campaigning, too, whether its on the Bristol heart scandal, cutting junior doctors’ hours or on destigmatising STI. Plus this has to be one of the few comedy shows offering practical advice on how to remove a lightbulb from the place even the sun don’t shine.

Other insights are more revelatory – except, perhaps, for those who already work in the NHS, who seem to think his apparently surprising disclosures are commonplace – and certainly explains the realities of the system (gential) warts and all. Plus the mix of fact, opinion, anecdotes and gags will certainly have you laughing – and the health benefits of that are well-documented.

Katy Schutte - Live Review

What a good idea this is: to take stories from the local newspaper and improvise scenes around them, topical and relevant to the town you’re performing in.

The ambitious part is that there is no formal structure to the sketches The Maydays construct from the headlines: no improv games to provide a reassuring framework, nor formulaic set-ups to get the creative juices flowing. The ethos is to just have an idea and go with it. Oh, and just to add to the challenge, sometimes the cast sometimes burst into song, too…

It’s a wonder this comes off at all, let alone as well as this talented sextet manage to achieve. There is a fair share of duds, to be honest, but generally the humour flows more freely that you might hope to expect.

Some of the stories pulled out of the hat are hardly inspiring – and makes you see why many local newspapers are in a parlous state. Seagull eats noodles was one yarn; another trivialised the horrific Sri Lankan civil war for a cheap publicity stunt, claiming the conflict would lead to a lack of coconuts for the shy at a local fate. Of these, the first sparked an imaginative scene about the gull-obsessed photographer who got the snap, while the flimsy premise of the second proved beyond the team’s wit and could produce only a dead-end idea.

Elsewhere, highlights included Jamie Oliver training up staff for his new store; a depressed Ken Dodd being cheered up before his gig and a teenage boy passing off his unkempt bedroom as an art installation.

The team seemed to lose their mojo in the interval, and the second half seemed to run out of steam more easily, a fact surely not helped by the fact it was by now way beyond midnight. But the big song-and-dance number about MPs’ expenses drew the show to a fitting finale.

Katy Schutte seems to be the driving force in many of the scenes, forcing the action onwards just to see what happens, while Heather Urquhart provided a flash of inspiration that turned a scene around more than once. Her idea that Dodd was down because his dad’s dog had died, for instance, was a stroke of genius.

But the star was not one individual performer but the instinctive rapport the whole company had between them. For one person to start a scene, perhaps not even with a line but just a pose, then others to gather around them to know roughly where the idea is heading takes practice, trust and talent, which this Brighton-based team have in spades.