Sally-Anne Hayward, Danny Beard, Choriza May - Bobby Carroll's Comedy Diary

Written by: Bobby Carroll
Published: Tuesday 6th December 2022

Now, usually I'm the oldest wizened crone at Edinburgh's Monkey Barrel. I arrive there punctual and watch the callow youth trundle in right up until lights down. Feeling ever so ancient with every fashion statement that ambles past me. So colour me surprised when I walked in early doors on a cold Thursday night and a near sell-out crowd had settled in seconds after the ticket list had been downloaded on the door guy's phone. Sally-Anne Hayward may not be a household name but she clearly was an attractive sell to this prompt and mature crowd. I doubt many felt the need to keep their receipts on exit. She gave them a great value (week night) date night.

Bouncing on stage in a glittery top, a subtle - but apt - star emblazoned across her, she could be the sophisticated career woman in charge of her department, the one everyone would want to be seated next to at the office Christmas night out. Then the filth begins.

I don't think I ever thought again about the word "sopping" since reading the letters pages of Razzle or Escort as a spotty teenager. When Hayward delivers it in her Radio 4, oh-so-southern English accent, the pull between tasteful and disgrace becomes clear. We have a shrewd comedy operator here who knows exactly what her style is.

Her set-ups are misleadingly tame and everyday but they switch to the profane without a blink or a stutter. Each reveal goes just a spanking more depraved than you could ever guess. And because she never waivers from the outward persona of that nice lady, two doors down, the audience fully accepts it. I suspect they wouldn't embrace such material from an edgy twenty-something quite so comfortably. You can tell Sally-Anne Hayward has figured out her niche is filling that accessible naughty but niceness of early Sarah Millican. A vacuum left when the bigger star ascended to arenas and DVDs in Morrisons. I doubt there's many a circuit promoter who doesn't value having such a pleasing performer in their contacts list.

There was a strange moment early on when a casual rhetorical question turned into all the punters listing "things from Oxford"?! Hayward seemed in no rush to move onto her intended bit, and she was so at ease with the democratic interaction that it warmed the room nicely, giving everyone their chance to be smart, weird or included with minimal knock back to any brain farts. Again, many other comedians might attack their dafter answers for easy laughs. Hayward steps back and lets the vox pop naturally congeal the disparate heads.

There's a blast-off line about the peacocks at the end of her garden. Her longer bits include standing ovations in the biscuit aisle, Raynaud syndrome, her menagerie of neighbours. Whatever she's selling, we're buying; the pitch is so practised, so elegant, so unobtrusive you'll struggle not to laugh.

Christmas. Uniqueness. Nerve. Trans Rights. We headed off for a double date to the grotty Liquid Rooms nightclub to check out a Klub Kids Christmas themed drag show; Shantay You Sleigh.

If you are a fan of the UK incarnation of Ru Paul's Drag Race you may have noticed a weird chafing between the long established American format and Britain's very separate tradition of comedy queens. It is probably fair to say that Ru and Michelle Visage took a few seasons to get used to the idea that over here, in the old country, we like our drag a bit panto as much as we do fashion and experimental. Hi-De-Hi! as much as Haute Couture.

Sometimes it has led to a funny contestant realising they have to be far more rounded than having just that one strength if they want to progress in the fierce competition. Other times it has seen genuine comedy legends like Graham Norton or Alan Carr grit their teeth when having to overpraise an off-hand bit of hack as if the next Steve Martin or Hannah Gadsby has been toiling around in the wrong genre. For the savvy viewer, this dichotomy is always a sweet and sour sensation. Funny seems to be dictated by whatever tickles the producer / presenters foreign fancy with little concern to what might chime with the wider native audience.

So it was a real boon for a more textured comedy contestant to actually win the crown this year. The marvellous Danny Beard is the full package - glamorous, talented and with obvious mainstream comedy appeal. A class act too - they probably didn't have to show up to a whistlestop tour of mixed-bill drag in mid-sized venues the week after winning their genre's biggest prize. But you can sense a loyalty to Klub Kids, the promoter Beard has openly credited with platforming and championing their drag. I know many a stand-up who wouldn't honour such a commitment after a massive breakout win like Danny Beard's.

Beard is the show's MC, which gifts them and us plenty of stage time. It also allows them the luxury to lay into the whole mass with a rattlesnake wit. "Povvo row" is accused of not being able to afford televisions, the front row is told to "look but don't touch" like the mutants they are and one disruptive birthday party is silenced immediately with a lethal blow about self tan. The nifty assaults keep the laughs coming in a way even a seasoned Comedy Store comic might struggle to achieve in a similar chaotic set-up. And Beard does it all somehow in another queen's borrowed 6 inch heels. This is old fashioned insult comedy given an ASOS era spin. And it proves exactly what is needed for a standing / swaying mob, of mixed ages and comedy abilities, who quite possibly might be enjoying a little more than cheap nightclub wine in plastic chalices.

When Beard is brought on stage, to a professional festive dance number inspired by Mean Girls, they come up the stairs to the offhand lyric "here comes the man with the bag". It might be accidental. Unintentional. Happenstance. But the implication is made a few times that backstage there's some white powder making everyone festive... the adrenaline on stage ain't coming from fizzy mineral water and bananas. And the audience is very much in on the joke.

Whenever Beard has a word to say that might not suit the teens in the audience (the gig is 14+ and hyper inclusive) they move the mic just an inch from their mouth. Those are probably the only times in the entire show you could say any punches are pulled and Beard is smart enough to turn their self-censorship into a slick running gag.

Their look is immaculate; a red velvet swimsuit, fishnet stockings, white kabuki face and a beehive of silvery hair. The attitude is next level. Even when Beard's put downs and gameshow bits wobble towards the Butlins or Carry On level of dated, the muscle of them erase any doubts. And away from the silly stuff their live renditions of recent hits display a tremendous set of pipes. A talent that 10 feature length episodes of lip syncing and skits never revealed. Wow! This Queen slays definitively.

The whole Klub Kids Christmas tour show is a spectacle. A massive LED screen counts down and exaggerates names as an interactive backdrop. Some acts hijack it for AV bits. MuthaTucka embraces it for an unhinged ode to Greggs. Their heartfelt yearning for a festive steak bake has a video backing, edited with all the playfulness and rhythm of David Trent.

Big fave in our house, Choriza May, ignores the Christmas theme and reboots the gig into a Marge Simpson / Chanel Fashion lipsync mash-up. When she starts sprinkling glitter from a furry merkin the room erupted into a riot. Her cheeky sense of the outrageous and Almodovar inspired commitment to strange sauce really stands out among the less risk taking, sloppier queens who just go for quick easy laughs. Not that her self-styled anthem, My Pussy is Like a Peach, isn't juvenile, simplistic and oh-so-catchy. But it is original. She stands tall, a goddess, at the cutting edge of UK drag but with universal appeal. Surely everyone wants a bit of wacky colour to brighten their winter.

The Klub Kids format has a certain degree of hit and run to it. Aside from the MC, performers are given very little time to survive in the hungover memory the next morning. And not every act on stage would be easily classified as funny. Afro-Latinx drag king Chiyo makes their declaration via dance. A sexy, rhythmic striptease number to George Michael's Father Figure that made Magic Mike seem like Mike the Knight. The most outwardly political act on the bill, their skill and dexterity made the biggest statement. Electric! If you are a comedy fan wanting to broaden your horizons a Klub Kids night will certainly serve you a fine broad runway of what is out there in the wider world.

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