James Acaster, Alternative Comedy Memorial Society, Ali Brice - Mark Muldoon's Comedy Diary

Written by: Mark Muldoon
Published: Monday 31st July 2023

How weird do you like your comedy?

If it helps you answer, think of weirdness as using the same system Nandos use for ranking spice levels. How spicy would you go? Medium? Extra spicy? Take your baseline to be Jack Whitehall, who is, obviously, lemon & herb.

For a certain type of comedy fan - one that likes their comedy a little spicier - James Acaster represents something of a triumph: a hugely successful comedian who's also a little bit weirder than most of his big-league peers. He's added a little alternative comedy flavouring into the mix.

Acaster has previously discussed his tendency to entirely derail gigs when he sensed the audience isn't fully on his side. His new tour, called Hecklers Welcome, sees him opting to tackle his fears head-on. The show's blurb states that he "has written a new show. He's very proud of it. That being said, you are allowed to ruin it". On the opening night of the tour in Cardiff, a supportive crowd is largely uninterested in being disruptive. Cleverly, he opens the show with a section that makes the audience empathise with his dislike of heckling, thus, you'd have to assume, substantially reducing the likelihood of them choosing to do so.

Hecklers Welcome goes in search of the root causes of Acaster's often fraught relationship with performing. So many of his previous shows have - either transparently or obliquely - mined his traumas for material. Here he returns to some fairly low-stakes childhood traumas, but it's also, by some margin, the happiest and most content we've seen him on stage.

The fairly clean-cut storytelling focus makes this his most straightforward show yet. It also edges him further away from his earlier works as a slightly more 'alternative comedian'. Which isn't intended as a criticism. The show doesn't hit the heights of its 2018 predecessor Cold Lasagna Hate Myself 1999 but then, that always felt like something of a magical one-off: one of the all-time greatest stand-up comedy shows. Hecklers Welcome is more of a perfectly commendable four-star effort.

If one of your favourite things about Acaster is the slight weirdness in his comic persona, then the rest of this column is for you.

Weirdness-wise, the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society (ACMS for short) is marketed as 'very spicy'. The long-running night pitches itself as a place for comedians to try out material that wouldn't work in mainstream comedy clubs, adding that "the venue, at least, will be accessible".

What's the dream outcome for attendees of such a night? Probably that you leave with a batch of new comedians to check out. Maybe even find your new favourite comedian - one that's expanded your definition of what you even thought could be funny.

By that measure, ACMS isn't a runaway success. Much of the comedy on offer likely wouldn't work in a mainstream comedy club, but a harsh observer might request that it at least be good enough to work at an alternative comedy night. You don't feel as though you're watching a collective of comedians that have been unfairly robbed of wider attention by a homogeneous, vanilla, aggressively capitalist comedy industry.

Consistency, it should be said, is deliberately not part of the ACMS ethos. Each of the 11 short sets ends by announcing it to have been "a noble failure", even if it was actually a pretty unarguable triumph.

On the night, Nikola McMurtrie (pictured above) and Ted Hill were the acts worthy of further attention. The wide range of comedy on offer means that perhaps a more accurate culinary comparison would be a Nandos 11-wing roulette. If you are looking for alternative comedians unfairly robbed of wider attention, Knock2Bag, Stamptown and the Weirdos collective probably make for better hunting grounds.

ACMS isn't marketed as a new material night, but viewed in that way, it's reasonably successful. Its spirit - as an incubator of interesting, experimental ideas - remains unquestionably commendable. If nothing else, by 2023 standards £8 is pretty great value for this amount of impassioned human endeavour in this area of Very Central London. ACMS are also a late-night mainstay at the Edinburgh Fringe: it's possible that - with just the right crowd in, and the perfect amount of alcohol consumed - those shows will really come alive.

Elsewhere in the alternative comedy landscape, Ali Brice has crafted more of a sure-fire hit of a show. At risk of overegging the Nandos analogy, he's a perfectly manageable, warm level of spice: probably about as spicy as Acaster was around the era of his Repertoire shows.

Brice's gentle charm means it can feel a little surprising to learn in his show (I Tried To Be Funny, But You Weren't Looking) that - four years ago - he had a suicide attempt.

The show - considerably more joyful than that may sound - is about his journey back from that moment, to the content stability he now finds himself in.

The hour is an effective mix of clowning and storytelling. It's fair to say it packs an important message - the "life-changing" effects of his three years in therapy, perhaps - but you're going to have a lot of fun on the journey there. He also shows his impressive skillset for crowd interaction and is, pleasingly, even funnier when things suddenly don't go according to plan. It's a real gem of a show.

Read previous editions of this column

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