99 Club Pick & Mix Launch Night - Jade the Folk singer, Alan Parker and Robin Ince

 

Yet 99 Club Pick and Mix was so inexplicably brilliant I’m going to wear t-shirts bearing the night’s name every day and cover my Facebook profile with links and recommendations for their next event.

 

Two people managed to salvage the wreck. Sporting a pink dressing gown and crusty make up, landlady Helen Heels (Caroline Mabey, pictured) buoyed up the evening with well-observed jibes at the audience. She demanded one attendee pretend to be her long lost son with her, then insisting he sing “Je t’aime” with her.

 

Saviour of the night, however, was Simon Munnery, playing Alan Parker, mock-revolutionary and excellent drunk. Planning to change the world from his humble home in Brockenhurst, he proclaimed one moment that he was in the first stage of his no language campaign, then in the next that his sexual preference is being a wanker. The act has been around for over ten years – but should never be dropped.

 

Less successful was Jade the Folk singer (aka Sarah Adams), a lesbian folk singer. She sang about her boyfriend having sex with her mum, calling her mum a “big fat whale”. She asked the audience if they felt sick when they looked at her, and then explained if they did that was because she was gay. The direction of her act was inconsistent, which was unforgivable considering how easy a target folk singers are.

 

Robin Ince stepped in to save the day when Simon Day cancelled at the last minute. 99 Club Pick and Mix is a sketch and character comedy night, so Day’s stand up offering was a little random. Still, he managed to get a good few giggles out of the assembled crowd.

 

On this occasion, 99 Club Pick and Mix lived up to its name. Go see the next offering: you never know what might happen.

 

99 Pick & Mix launch night @ 71 Blandford Street, W1 London, 10 May 2008

 

Holly Falconer