John Robins, Friday Night Live, Marina Hyde, The Weirdos - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary
Published: Tuesday 1st November 2022
There's a bit of a halloween theme to this month's column, if you're able to spot it. It's pretty subtle, just to forewarn you.
It all started in the depths of West London, where we witnessed the resurrection of a beast long assumed dead: we were part of the audience for Channel 4's one-off revival of Friday Night Live. Credit should be given to the line-up - they chose exceptionally well from the current crop of upcoming comedians who are very deserving of the fresh exposure (top three on the night being Leo Reich, Jordan Gray and Mawaan Rizwan). There aren't exactly an excessive number of places to perform alternative stand-up comedy on TV these days, so the value of this shouldn't be understated. With Self Esteem they could hardly have picked a better music guest, either.
There was plenty of studio chatter during the advert breaks suggesting they want to get a full series out of it, and they definitely deserve one. In TV's streaming era, having a million people watching a live comedy broadcast seemed to have an additional unpredictable thrill to it - one that you'd never get on, say, Live At The Apollo. Ben Elton worked well as host, though you'd hope any full series would lean a little less heavy on the nostalgia - if Nish Kumar wasn't up for taking over presenting duties, maybe Angela Barnes would be? Or Mawaan Rizwan, maybe?
Speaking of tentative comebacks, James Acaster has spent much of this year dipping his toe back into performing stand-up again. His new stuff is fantastic - it centres around his relationship with stand-up, and the history of his relationship with stand-up. It's clearly also the most at-ease James we've ever seen on stage. He seems to be genuinely enjoying himself. There's still uncertainty over whether he wants to tour this as a proper finished show - for now he seems happy to just be working with his favourite smaller venues and promotors, as if he's working on new material purely for the enjoyment of it.
As a treat for their Halloween special, Greenwich institution Sunday Special had John Robins on hosting duties. Rather than be the life of the party, Robins finds himself surrounded by Halloween celebrations and adopts more the attitude of a killjoy health & safety officer. It's more fun than it sounds. Both him and headliner Tim Key are at the top of their game, supported by Celya AB (increasingly promising) and Erika Ehler (great, if her material is sometimes too dark for this crowd).
The Weirdos collective of comedians, meanwhile, staged a spooky edition of their show The Envelopes (pictured top), which sees every audience member posted an actual parcel in advance of the performance, containing handmade artworks, minor challenges to complete, a lanyard with their character name for the evening (I'm assigned the persona 'Jeff Penis'), and other random oddities with which to lightly influence the show in some way.
It's real labour of love stuff - presumably requiring countless hours of preparation. You struggle to see how anybody involved could actually be making worthwhile money out of it. If you were going to be harsh you could suggest that the central 'envelopes' concept perhaps isn't exploited to its full potential. But that's maybe not the point. It adds an innovative additional layer of fun to what would've been a high quality comedy show regardless.
To the unending horror show that is politics, now. Marina Hyde joined Richard Osman for an 'in conversation' event, to mark the fact she's put out an anthology book of her Guardian columns. It was an evening of lightly amusing promotional chit chat - as these things tend to be - but if the event's focus isn't always on comedy you're still in the presence of the person who is, it's fair to say, Britain's best political comedian. She just only ever presents her stand-up routines in print, rather than on a stage or panel show.
Finally, The Death Hilarious (a fairly Halloween-appropriate name for a sketch duo, no?), who made the trip to London for the first of their own nights at Camden Comedy Club. The Welsh, working class pair have previously stated that they've been unable to take a show to the Edinburgh Fringe lately, due to the pretty extreme costs required to do so.
It's a shame: The Death Hilarious are brilliant. Every sketch is clever and inventive, you never quite seem to be able to predict what direction they are going in.
Headliner Jordan Brookes doesn't show up and no mention of the fact is given (comedians can seem oddly unreliable when it comes to honouring these kind of commitments), but Amy Gledhill and Julia Stenton both contribute superb guest spots. The audience are lightly disruptive in a manner that you imagine may annoy some comedians but does actually add to the evening's sense of unpredictable fun (shout out to the one audience member whose granddad had 24 children). It's just a shame The Death Hilarious themselves aren't better known - not doing Edinburgh has probably robbed them of the kind of valuable publicity and opportunities that the Fringe is there to provide exciting new acts. Edinburgh's loss.
Read previous editions of this column
Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram and Twitter, if that's your jig.
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