Eddie Kadi, Andrew Mensah & Gbemi Oladipo, final ever Sunday Special - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary

Written by: Mark Muldoon
Published: Sunday 2nd March 2025

Everybody's been talking about heckling over the last couple of weeks, haven't they.

It's unlikely you've missed the widespread coverage afforded to the incident, where Peter Kay kicked two audience members out of his Manchester gig when they wouldn't stop shouting out (understandable), opting to aim some pretty vitriolic comments in their direction whilst doing so (less understandable). As a result, comedians have been defending Kay in the media, saying that hecklers are, themselves, never actually funny. And for the most part, fair play. Anybody shouting "garlic bread" at Kay, or "poppadoms or bread?" at James Acaster is radioactively unfunny. But to suggest hecklers are never funny? May I politely object. By way of evidence, would you like to hear the funniest heckle I've ever heard...?

Australian comedian Tom Ballard was on stage talking, at some length, about his "gay Aboriginal boyfriend". After a while an older, darker skin woman on the front row loudly stated "still colonising us". The room erupted with laughter.

Which - stick with me - brings us to Strictly Come Dancing star and BBC 1Xtra DJ Eddie Kadi new tour. Here at Leicester Square Theatre he's supported by Gbemi Oladipo, who is also in danger of putting his foot in it when it comes to race relations. In a show where black audience members make up a strong majority of the audience, he asks a white guy on the front row if the (white) people sitting either side of him are his family. "No, I came alone", he replies. Cue much hilarious backpedalling as Oladipo attempts to convince us he's not racist.

It's a great set from Oladipo, who for a while feels in danger of overshadowing the main man himself. But no, Eddie Kadi proves his worth, giving us an easy-to-love charm offensive. (In so much as I was able to concentrate on the show, anyway. Throughout the hour the guy next to me was continuously using his phone, on the brightest screen setting).

"I'm from Tottenham", Kadi announces at the start. "Nah, I can't lie. I'm from Fulham", before adding "I can't do the badman thing". It's a pleasure to see this: Kadi gently expanding the range of personas black men are allowed to inhabit in UK media - it's not exactly often you get to see middle class black people on TV or in newspapers.

So alongside hearing about his stint on Strictly Come Dancing, we also get stories of his life growing up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (his father had 23 children by seven women, making him sound like he might be the country's very own Boris Johnson). He often breaks away from straight-forward stand-up to perform impressive dance routines. Uncharitable comedy critics may take the view that he overeggs these moments. To which Kadi might quite reasonably respond by pointing to the unfailingly uproarious audience reaction they receive and argue that that's the only review that matters.

A couple of weeks later Gbemi Oladipo is actually back, this time with his pal (and Sky Sports presenter) Andrew Mensah, at London's Top Secret Comedy Club. They've got a new monthly show, We Saw That, that they've started simply because they "like fucking around". So expect knockabout banter, guest comedians and Instagrammable audience interactions.

And it's a complete joy. I could listen to Mensah and Oladipo for hours and not get bored. Highlights may end up on social media before long (they have a multi-camera team filming the show and everything), but it's difficult to know how they'll edit together a tight 60 second clip of the Nigerian woman and Ukrainian man on a date in the front row. This causes Mensah to reflect on his support for Ukraine in the war, whilst contrasting that with the not-entirely-welcoming reception he received as a black person, on a pre-war visit to the country (this is, to be clear, all much funnier than it sounds).

Similar highlights abound. And then there's the guest spots. This column is starting a "Kyrah Gray tour. When?" campaign, as she's seemed ready to skyrocket for ages now. She's followed by Slim, who - for my money - tends to be more of an inconsistent comedy proposition, and that's largely proved here: for the most part solid, but definitely nothing to properly get excited about. Still, when Mensah states fairly plainly at the end of the evening "this show is the best show I've ever done", you agree that it's been a little special. If they can keep up this kind of form, they'll be queuing out the door.

Finally, this column previously reported on the high-quality final run of shows Sunday Special had put together, having decided to bow out after exactly 20 years at Up The Creek comedy club in Greenwich. So having had only nice things to say about the previous couple of shows, one feels duty bound to report that the actual final show doesn't gel nearly as well.

This may in part be due to Sindhu Vee apparently cancelling her appearance, which would've been a fine addition. Ele McKenzie has a tough job to do as a big-occasion-last-minute-stand-in, and with the best will in the world, she isn't yet up to it. Rob Beckett headlines, though with material that isn't as assured as the last time we saw him workshopping his next tour in this room. Daniel Kitson also isn't particularly electrifying as host, save for the authentically charming end of the show, as he gives away all the prop furniture that has long been part of the night's iconography.

The same team will still put on monthly shows at Up The Creek, by the way. Though their first headliner is Seann Walsh, and given that his ex-partner wrote a book accusing him of emotional abuse, feel free to factor that into your decision about whether to go or not.

Read previous editions of this column, featuring Inside No. 9: Stage/Fright, Andy Zaltzman and the Top 50 Live Comedy Shows of 2024.

Mark Muldoon is also available on Instagram, Threads and Bluesky. He's spending Sunday evenings walking around South London now, bereft and not really sure what to do with himself.