Comedy at Green Man Festival 2024

Written by: Tim Clark
Published: Sunday 1st September 2024

"Why was six, scared of seven?" says the comedian, looking the audience straight in the eye. "Because seven ate nine!".

Delivered in deadpan style to an audience of over 50 other children, Charlie on the Green Man kids' zone has just nailed his punchline. A mic-drop moment for any six year-old.

It's mid-afternoon on the second day of Green Man, which is held in the luscious Brecon Beacons in south Wales, and comedy seems to be sprouting from everywhere. The Flying Seagulls charity hosts a small stage in the kids' zone, with the host inviting little ones to come up and get their first taste of stand-up.

An hour or so later - in a science tent in Einstein's Garden, a section dedicated to inquisitive minds - a comedy science set was added last minute to the bill, scrawled in chalk on the setlist board outside. Stewart Lee himself turned up at the Cinema tent to introduce a film or two on the Friday. Comedy, so often confined to a darkened tent, but at Green Man it seems to have seeped into the very being of the festival itself.

British Comedy Guide leapt at the chance to see what the festival had on offer, and found a heady mix of industry stalwarts and fresh comedians gracing the comedy stage over three days.

Of course, among the impromptu revelry across the festival site, Green Man did have its own darkened tent to lure comedy fans and Stuart Goldsmith was the big draw on Friday night. The comedian, who has moved from London to Bristol, was quick to explain that he left a city he loved for, well, one with a balloon festival for a start.

"I love living in Bristol but it's a bit pleased with itself," he says. "And every resident tries to sell you a picture of the Clifton suspension bridge."

From the mystical pixie folk who inhabit hot air balloons to reflecting on the immigration rhetoric, Goldsmith hits the perfect notes for a festival audience over his 45-minute set, one of a number of surprisingly long set routines for a festival.

His main topic, however, is climate change: "I'm going to talk to you about the climate crisis for the next 38 minutes. It may feel longer", he quips before apologising for the fact that he is overly pushing an agenda with his comedy."

In a way Goldsmith needn't apologise as he was pushing agendas or boundaries in the same way that comedians have done for decades.

Goldsmith's set also played well with the eco-conscious Green Man crowd, explaining his angst at climate and parental choices. Why his kid is a flight risk, and whether he is guilty of a climate crime by feeding his kids red meat.

He asks the audience to give their climate confession. Within seconds, one lady stands up and admits to flying from Green Man on a business class flight, but it's ok as she has ordered a vegan meal.

Freya Parker was next up and held herself well enough considering she had to comedically babysit two drunk 18-year-old twins in the front row. A different comedian may have been tempted to get the duo on stage, Parker instead kept mainly to what looked to be her club set, and dip into a bit of twin bashing with her 'mum voice' whenever the duo got rowdy. It was surprising she didn't send them to bed.

Goldsmith isn't the only comedian to have moved out of London. As it happens, the second highlight of the Friday night, Spencer Jones, has also moved to the South West - but instead of Bristol he chose rural Devon to spend time chatting to chickens. Jones is beautifully unpredictable and was able to mix visual, audio and spoken comedy to great effect, his festival set works.

You can imagine the sheer wonder and frustration it must be to be Spencer's other half as he mixes a song about how he uses the machine late at night "after everyone goes to bed", and gets carried away. His comedy isn't everyone's taste, however a lot of work goes into the timing and choreography than many realise. He also toys with what is borderline acceptable in comedy.

Spencer makes reference to the fact he has a full 45 minutes to fill - which, to be fair, is a long time for a festival set. At ten and twenty minutes in he asks "how long is that?" and continues until he has only a few minutes left, bringing his apparent lack of material into a gag in itself. At times he is simply staged chaos, particularly the song about eggs and another about being scolded by an elderly rural neighbour.

The comedy tent at Green Man begins at 7pm, and goes on well into 2am, which is a decent stint. We snuck home shortly after midnight.

Saturday meant one thing: Stewart Lee.

The veteran comedian had a half hour headline slot at 9:30pm and the tent was at capacity at least an hour before. For the six hundred or so festival goers waiting to see the Fist Of Fun legend, Kiri Pritchard-McLean kept them well entertained.

Divulging how she once decided to cold wax her own fanny, she builds the crowd up before making way for Lee.

Billed as one of the biggest names in the business, Stewart Lee was without doubt the star attraction of the weekend, and didn't need much time to get stuck in.

"Here in the Glanusk, the white supremacist theme park, the only other person of colour here is the Green Man himself", he says disparagingly before opening his first half of the set.

"I'm listed in one of the programmes as doing 90 minutes, I'm only doing 30 but it'll feel like 90", he adds.

From notes on privatised water companies to the fact that he only ever wrote one decent opening routine to a festival, "and that was in 1989. I'll do it now, and won't change any of the cultural reference points", Lee got into his stride. Simultaneously criticising his own improvisations, the audience, white privilege and combating racism.

For those who have seen Lee many times there wasn't too much that is new in the set, his piece on being arrested for saying you're English is a well-trodden routine, but for comedy fans looking for new material, there's ample options in Scotland in mid-August.

Lee is a highly self-aware comedian so he knows that his routine has become a parody of himself, and has for a number of years used that to enhance his jokes, and riff off of them.

It's as if Lee's main source of material is 'being Stewart Lee'. He's taken this to another depth by admitting that "I'm supposed to be miserable and pretend I hate doing this", as he chuckles at one of his own jokes.

Following Stewart Lee is always tough, and the predictable crowd exodus after he finished left Freddie Hayes with a difficult task, which she coped with adequately enough. Hayes is more cabaret than comedy and the antithesis of Lee's acerbic, self-reflecting comedy style.

Taking over MC duties for the late shift, Sam Nicoresti had one challenge, to contain Nick Helm, or deal with the aftermath.

If there was a line which marks borderline acceptable and late night revelry, then the start of Nick Helm's set is it.

He sledgehammers any idea of proprietary, sending out obscenities into the audience in a quick fire round.

"Don't you fucking swear at me, I'm an artist" he says to Rafi, and audience member.

Helm's set is like seeing a fly on the wall documentary into an over-aggressive corporate welfare coach. The game of "what's your favourite sandwich" is a debauched version of a Channel 26 TV show.

After organising some overly complicated imaginary sandwich making contest on stage with up to a dozen members of the audience, Helm ends his set by dumping a box of DVDs on stage. The audience then forgets all proprietary and rushes in like bargain-hunter's at a car boot.

MC Nicoresti comes into they're own when thinking on their feet, guilt tripping the audience members who hoarded Helm's free DVDs. "You've all gone feral, you've forgotten what money is, and think these things have value. Oi, back to your seats, I'm taking charge of the DVDs. Don't you try and sell me fucking Motley Crew!".

With two main acts disappearing into the night, the crowd whittled down as Frank Foucault took to the stage, with some well-crafted songs, such as Ladies Man, that deserved more people to see it. Then, as midnight approached Tony Law made a surprise appearance.

It seemed to be a surprise to Law that he was somehow in a field in Wales doing stand-up at the witching hour.

"They phoned and said 'someone can't make it'", he quipped. "And I said I'll only do the gig if it's late at night and it's empty. I'm not taking an afternoon set with a full crowd, I want the main band of the weekend on while I do my set."

Battling interference is an occupational hazard at almost all festivals, but Law coped well enough for the late night routine, which was improvised more than scripted.

After a well-deserved rest, Sunday's line-up promised more of the same. Welsh comedian Esyllt Sears explained to the non-Welsh speaking contingent just how unromantic the Welsh language can be at times.

"When I am getting down to it I don't want to sound like I'm selling a combine harvester," she says before asking all the men in the audience to stand up, then sit down if they're over 33... Or under 26, which luckily meant this writer could relax a bit. Esyllt is on the hunt for a man to have sex with, a bit like an explicit version of Challenge Anneka as she runs about eyeing up potential opportunities, whether they're available or not.

"You've been such a lovely audience and please don't report me to the police" she adds before leaving the stage.

Next act Michael Akadiri works as a junior doctor and in between comparing births to courier deliveries and baby head shapes gives an insight into his life as a doctor, one who took a sabbatical to look after his own newborn.

It's refreshing to hear a male comedian talk about babies from an inclusive angle, and is becoming more common than a decade ago. Akadiri also was a huge hit with a gaggle of nurses in the crowd who got some of his NHS in-jokes.

Next act Leroy Brito didn't deliver any rip-roaring moments but also didn't drop his tempo or flail. He delivered a solid, unruffled set, and we wouldn't be surprised if in a few years he is picked up for a panel show or the like.

Laurie Watts then took on a short set just before Rob Deering. "It's nice to be here legally this time", she quips as she recalls the first time she ventured to Green Man as part of an LGBT parade and never left. Watts delivered some nice oneliners, and it will be interesting to see how her set develops.

Rob Deering could be considered the top act on the bill for Sunday, and armed with his four track looper bought parts of his new show to Green Man, with songs touching on the UK riots, Esther Rantzen and what kept him sane during lockdown. Considering it's a music festival, Deering was the first act we saw who had an actual guitar on stage and, improvising ACDC and The Cure among others, his songs went down well. It could be argued that, as more acts start using looping devices, Deering's efforts start to look ever so slightly dated. He also took some time to get into his own original material and overall didn't match the heights of Helm, Goldsmith, or Jones in terms of pure laughs, but was a safe pair of hands to see in the final evening of the festival.

Green Man has a tradition of burning an effigy of the man himself at midnight on the last day, and - as some kind of punishment for deeds of a previous life - Al Barrie was the act on before the event.

Barrie took on similar topics as Stewart Lee the evening before, just in a different style. Commenting on the line-up he said, "You can tell how hippy a festival is when you haven't heard of most of the bands."

It would be fair to say that Barrie jumped across different topics a bit too quickly, skipping from autism to the Welsh language, to Donald Trump, and then on and on, feeling out his material as he went, but his 45 minutes was punctuated by some decent material. Considering he was up against a giant burning ritual, it's fair to say he stood his ground.

For those who aren't overawed by a trip to Edinburgh but want some comedy in August, Green Man provides that ample sample of laughs tucked away in the Welsh hills.