Jordan Gray, Mike Wozniak, Mock The Week, Live At The Apollo - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary

Written by: Mark Muldoon
Published: Tuesday 11th October 2022

You have to marvel at the rocket-like ascent of Jordan Gray, scoring the kind of Edinburgh Fringe success that so many acts push themselves towards financial peril in the hope of achieving. Having just sold out a run at Soho Theatre, she's now gone and booked the enormous London Palladium - which would be an astonishing enough move, even before you consider the fact that she's given herself less than five weeks to shift tickets for it. By contrast, Russell Kane is taking a 13-month run-up in order to try and sell out the same venue.

You can see why there's 'next big thing' talk going on, though: every moment in her show is sold by her fantastic force-of-nature stage presence. It's impossible not to see similarities with mid-noughties Russell Brand, which Gray acknowledges. The material largely concerns her trans identity: all of it is good - often great - with the tone kept joyful and fun throughout. Skillfully, only the final line of the show drops the comedy elements in order to more-nakedly make its emotional social point, and by then, it's been well-earned, and everyone is presumably receptive to listening to it. Even the regular self-congratulation - which so often rankles in the mouths of other acts - is forgivable, due to the obvious, exciting new talent on display.

Kim Noble is also a bold performer, though we're talking very different varieties of 'bold' here. He's the comedy performer I'd recommend to you if you've been finding Frankie Boyle's stand-up a little safe and unchallenging. Throughout his new show, unspeakable things variously happen (usually in pre-filmed video content) to animals, insects, Kim's own family members and Kim's own body. He's spent seven years working on this return to live performance, and it does show. It's dense with clever, brilliant ideas.

There are big emotional moments, but the show felt too brutal with its methods to allow me to also empathise with Noble all that much. I still definitely found myself laughing though - and laughing hard - alongside all the gasping. You feel sorry for Kim a little - isolated and longing for connection - but the majority of your sympathies are with the animals and family members that feel more like victims of the show, rather than the valued supporting cast members they're perhaps made out to be. But taken on its merits as a comedy show, it's very successful indeed: hugely inventive, unique, and there's a lot that's very funny, so long as you've okay with the more bracing bits. It's back for another London run next spring.

As a palate cleanser after that, it felt good to attend a couple of TV recordings for the constitutionally risk-averse BBC. First up were two back-to-back episodes from the next series of Live At The Apollo. Of the six featured comedians, Judi Love was the unsurprising highlight - she's just as wonderful company doing stand-up as during her many and varied TV appearances. Ed Gamble, Michelle De Swarte and Sean McLoughlin were also well deserving of their slots on the prestigious show.

Then there was taping the first episode of the final series of Mock The Week. These recordings can be long - you definitely see a huge amount of perfectly good jokes not 'make the edit' - which highlights the writing effort that goes into each show.

It was particularly special to witness the deserving debut appearance of Josh Pugh - someone else likely to be all over TV screens in the coming years. As a show, Mock The Week will be missed: many fans detected a dip in quality after the most renowned cast - Russell Howard, Frankie Boyle etc. - departed. Nowadays, in the studio there's a noticeably nicer, more supportive atmosphere amongst the comedians, with seemingly more off-the-cuff 'banter' moments. It's under-appreciated what a run of form the show recaptured in recent years, with Rhys James, Angela Barnes and Ed Gamble amongst the reasons to keep tuning in.

There was also time to catch a work-in-progress show from Mike Wozniak, who's been preparing his new show ahead of a tour next year. On early evidence, it's great - very fun - storytelling. Worth booking tickets for.

Finally, fresh from winning the big award at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Sam Campbell returned to Hackney's Moth Club with his intriguingly undermarketed 'McDonald's Comedy' night. Also declining to announce his guest comedians beforehand, Ed Night and Yuriko Kotani offered straight-forward stand-up, whereas Campbell had prepared sketches with Ray Badran and Mark Silcox respectively - the Badran one in particular felt like a bit of a treat. In between, Campbell offered material largely drawn from this year's prize-winning Edinburgh show, as well received by this quite-drunk London crowd as it was by quite-drunk Scottish crowds in August.

By booking Mat Ewins as headliner, Campbell was arguably aiming to share the limelight with another comedian operating within the same sphere - 'live comedy but with dazzlingly creative visuals', basically. Both are well worthy of your time, but special mention to Ewins who - in an embarrassingly late manner - has finally started churning out videos for social media as well. On previous form, he's well worth a follow.

Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter, if you're so inclined.