PLYMOUTH Comedy Club’s big summer show, the Night of Headliners, coincided with an electrical storm hitting the city – appropriate as there was plenty of lightning wit inside the Holiday Inn.
Top of the bill Roger Monkhouse possessed some of the cleverest, sharpest and most satirical material of any of the dozens of laugh merchants this growing comedy club has brought to the Ocean City.
He managed to take in the world’s trouble spots, immigration, diversity Scottish independence and even how all bald middle-aged men, like himself, look alike.
He has a relaxed, winning demeanour which makes you think he’s talking just to you.
Perhaps, a little of his more razor-like satirical comments by-passed some of the 400-strong audience, especially those strolling down the road towards inebriation, but if there’s been a more keen observer of political behaviour then it’s hard to recall one.
But Roger wasn’t the only success on the night – in fact, there wasn’t a single act on the bill that failed to deliver.
And that included compare Dave Williams, who had the unenviable task of stepping into the well-worn sneakers of regular MC Chris Brooker, who’s touring with a wrestler (don’t ask).
Chris is a huge part of the club, a brilliant funnyman and a mainstay of why it even exists. But Dave was an ample substitute and particularly endearing for his apologies every time he lapsed into “filth”. His interaction with the audience was also first rate, and hysterical.
But perhaps it was Geordie Barry Dodds who had the joke of the night. In a first rate set, taking in alcohol sales and limos, his crack about the history of Leeds Metropolitan University drew laugher and applause. A showstopper.
But he wasn’t alone in bringing the audience to delight. The two women on the bill produced excellent sets too.
Canadian Allyson Smith’s impersonations of Shakira and Britney were nothing short of brilliant. And she’s right, there are not enough songs about going to the gym and not eating crisps.
Kiri Pritchard-McLean, from Manchester, was younger than the rest, but still hit the funny bone of the mostly middle-aged audience, with her take on house prices, weight loss, and the loss of natural habitat for a pesky creature I can’t name in front of children.
In all, another night of triumph for the Comedy Club, which returns in the autumn, Chris Brooker no doubt back in post-wrestling, wise-cracking form.
