Comedy news: Such Small Portions's review

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It’s not often you go to a comedy gig expecting a near riot, but with Hans Teeuwen on the bill of the last night of the inaugural Greenwich Comedy Festival it was a distinct possibility. 

The Dutch absurdist’s set was always going to be a tipping point, he has the ability to leave an audience rolling around in uncontrollable mirth or baying for blood – such is his ability to split a crowd. 

And yet, things had started out so serenely at headliner Mark Watson’s Big Night Out, with compare Jo Brand competently pepping up the crowd with her usual mix of gender politics, self-depreciation and sarcasm drawing laughs throughout.

Opening preceedings was the delightfully dark Sarah Millican who managed to shock, titillate and be completely lovely simultaneously. It is incredible to think that she’d never been in a comedy club before her debut on the stand-up circuit in 2005, she has a completely natural stage presence it is surprising she wasn’t born there.

Her ability to turn the mundane (a couple shopping at a supermarket) into absolute filth (unlubed sex with a cucumber) makes Millican a true gem in a largely barren field of British female comics and highlights why she won best newcomer at Edinburgh last year.

But even as blue as she had turned the air, no-one was quite prepared for Teeuwen, as he hit the stage like the nonsensical European cousin of Tom Waits. Soon he was launching into random MJ/Nina Simone-inspired medleys, bizarre bodily contortions and a perverted hand puppet routine where righty screws lefty. 

The crowd were suitably puzzled and half (me included) absolutely loved it. 

But the other half certainly didn’t. Some began leaving halfway through a clever rant against religion and by the end of his ode to the vagina (‘I Like Your C***’) others were screaming for him to get off stage. It was brilliant, stand-up theatre at its most divisive and Teeuwen positively basked in it as he rolled around on floor with a fold-out chair.

Eventually, several minutes after the booing started, he was gone. But the damage done with the crowd split right down the middle.

By the time Mark Watson took to the stage to headline, some of those who walked out had returned safe in the knowledge Teeuwen had left – the audience atmosphere was restless and disconnected, and the set was always likely to be an anti-climax.

Watson is a safe performer, and maybe his musings over his forthcoming fatherhood and chasing as a socially acceptable adult pursuit helped relieve the tense crowd. But the memory of the Dutchman was fresh in the collective mind and it was detrimental to the Bristolian’s set.

At times, Watson’s natural awkwardness also worked against him - he has recently been irked by criticism of his participation in the Magner's Pear Cider commercials and felt the need to defend himself onstage, which was fine but you could see that with that and Teeuwen added together, was enough to be distracting. And when he realised he was running late for a long-haul flight, he was gone quicker than a flash.

Overall the final night of Greenwich Comedy Festival was an enjoyable two hours interrupted or accentuated - depending on your comedy standpoint - by an insane Dutchman with penchant for confrontational stand-up.

The Greenwich Comedy Festival is over until next year but if you have the chance, go and see Teeuwen when he returns to the UK in November.

You have not seen anything like it before. I promise.

Jesse Whittock

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If you haven’t seen Janeane Garofalo do stand-up before, you might expect to get the kooky-grouchy poppet of The Truth About Cats and Dogs or Mystery Men.

You might expect to get one of the most belligerent popular liberal commentators in America, the only lefty who willingly appears again and again on the bearpit of Fox News.

What you might not expect is what you actually get, which is a scattershot, compulsively self-disembowelling narcissist, the components of whose act are a bit like drinks at a student ball: abundant, chaotic, not especially good, usually half-finished; and yet the total effect of which is surprisingly enjoyable.

Garofalo’s stock-in-trade is observational humour, which is roughly as unexciting as it sounds.

We learn that cricket is a bit baffling to an American; that her impression of Glasweigans is that they are a bunch of violent deep fried Mars Bar eating alcoholics; that the birther movement is vile and bizarre, that life was different before mobile phones, and that, hey, maybe being dead is rather like not being born, d’ya ever think of that? I kind of had, Janeane. Thanks for the insight.

We get a tiny bit of political material – I had hoped for rather more – and it’s pretty unincisive.

But then, about halfway through, she abandons the idea of structure and plunges into a kaleidoscopic barrage of reports from the front line of her mind.

This is clearly more comfortable territory for her and the pace picks up considerably as she discusses her alcoholism, her eating problems, her sexual hang-ups, and, at endearingly great length, her utter beguilement by Natalie Portman.

As she repeatedly eviscerates her own character, it’s hard not to warm to her conviction and immediacy (as two men leave the swelteringly hot venue early, she cries out ‘I’m pretending it’s fine – when in fact this moment is going to play in my head tonight over and over and over again’).

If we accept that such things can indeed be one-sided then this is, in the end, a highly conversational act. It might be ill-prepared and incoherent, but that contributes to its attractive air of honesty and directness.

I was rather left with the feeling that Garofalo would make a great dinner party guest. She’d probably get a bit loud, and she’d probably also embarrass herself, but she’d be charming too – and the only people it would piss off would be the annoyingly straight-laced couple you’d secretly been hoping would leave all evening.

Alex Brenner

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Lucy Porter. Phil Kay. Russell Howard. Craig Campbell as compere - this isn’t a gig, this is a one night comedy carnival.

A small one in a tent outside the old Royal Naval College on a Wednesday night, but a carnival nonetheless.

Part of the first year of the Greenwich Comedy Festival (A comedy festival. In London. I know - truly, truly amazing) 1500 lovely middle class comedy-loving folk single-filed their way into a marquee and watched four comedians on the top of their game make them laugh, very, very hard.

First of all, Lucy Porter, who opened weakly with two jokes most Mock The Week's fans will have already heard (and with Russell Howard headlining, there were more than a few in the audience) rallied as she went on, reading out some dubious phrases from one of the lesser established English-Thai phrasebooks and telling a great story about changing how you can change your telephone banking's 'secret question' .

Playing up her kookiness, she maintained her slightly deranged image throughout, but nowhere near the levels of Phil Kay, who swung from the stage's scaffolding like an ape, only restricted by his microphone cable.

As if that matters to Kay. Strolling into the crowd and bellowing "I don't even NEED a microphone!" his semi-demented shtick didn't work as well as it might in a smaller, more intimate venue, but he still choked a few chuckles out of the audience, even if it was obvious many (at the back, especially) didn't really get the 'joke'.

The guitar was whipped out, contagious diseases sung about, before the set abruptly ended, rounding off at around the 15 minutes mark - though the crowd didn't much care, what with Mr Howard's imminent arrival.

The panel show favourite did not disappoint, even if he did reuse material from his recent Dingledodies tour (telling us about the time he impersonated the Churchill dog in bed; closing with the swimming costume wrestlers story) there was still plenty of brilliant, sparkly fresh stuff in there (singing "I rimmed a tramp and I liked it" to the tune of Katy Perry's hit amongst other things).

It's noticeable how much more adult he's willing to let his material become on stage, using phrases  in a way he just wouldn’t a few years ago, becoming a touch naughtier throughout the set but the infectious jollity is still there. The sugar-high smile and the manic, electric delivery his legions of fans adore him for, and he's still popping out the comic 'Wess Cunry' accent as and when though he's becoming a bit more self-aware in an Eddie Izzardish way when his jokes (very rarely) fall flat.

It's safe to say his 'meteroric rise' shows no sign of stopping and even shinier stardom beckons in the near future - expect sold-out shows whenever, wherever, for the foreseeable future.

Ali Plumb

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Glastonbury has played host to some of the biggest and best names in comedy this weekend – many of whom we at suchsmallportions.com have had the pleasure of reviewing for you – but the biggest laughs of the festival may well have come from an unexpected source. 

“Troubled singer Amy Winehouse” (as we are all contractually obliged to call her) was second billing on the Pyramid Stage on Saturday night, and – while her fiery-and-smoky-by-turns voice was on fine fettle – it was the between-songs banter, if such it can be called, that caught the attention. 

Rumours had been flying that Winehouse would be unable to attend due to health concerns – but it was her sobriety that was seriously at question, as she stumbled on stage with her trademark beehive swaying precariously. 

After slurring her way through a few segues, she decided the time was right to mention Blake Fielder-Civil, currently incarcerated – but, she said, expecting to be released in two weeks. 

Amusingly, someone in the crowd booed, and Winehouse, eyes flashing, turned on them – “who said that?” she snapped, “I’ll find you”, apparently building up to a death threat, “and take your phone and phone your mum and tell her about your manners. They cost nothing, you know”. 

Back to Fielder-Civil, she professed her love. “I’ve never fallen in love with a white man”, she said, “but this one hit me over the head with a cricket bat. That’s correct.” 

Apparently thinking that her husband’s jailors might not look upon this with kindness, she hastily added “not literally”. 

Comedy gold.

Tom Chivers

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You never know what you're going to get when you plunge into the cultural pick and mix that is the average Hay audience, but you'll normally be party to some surreal blathering or other that is well worth the ticket price alone.

Tonight's Radio 4 listener, sat directly behind me, was busy telling her long suffering friends that as a rule she didn't like stand-up, however she does believe Sandi Toksvig is a natural comedian.

Turning her attention to tonight's act her, pre-show verdict was that "he's very Irish, but very funny" as if the two don't normally sit well together; and I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with her. at least about O'Briain.

The freedom of the stage combined with harsh lighting transformed O'Briain from the cuddly host of Mock the Week into an almost demonic looking redneck Celt. Machine gunning through the performance with a professional mania the excitable Irishman rattled from one story to another as if unable to stop even if he wanted to.

Late in the gig he checked his watch and, realising he was now clashing with Reg. D. Hunter's gig across site, promised to finish soon before effortlessly ploughing on for a further 20 minutes. 

It is clear from watching him on stage exactly why he has enjoyed such televisual success in recent years, but it is also comedian's curse - on more than one occasion I was familiar with his material. Even then O'Briain's stage technique gave it a fresh quality.

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To nick a phrase from tonight's compere, Byrne is "fast becoming a Hay tradition" - a motor-mouthed whirlwind that rips through the festival, indiscriminately flinging artful expletives to furthest reaches of the site.

"He's very aggressive" says a lady next to me before the show starts, eyes wide with expectation. And she's right, he is.

In the same way as a kid who's been allowed to stay up past their bedtime is - he's just found that his parents will laugh at his juvenile jokes, knows he's on to a good thing and is milking every minute of it. 

True, the material Byrne uses to charm his supposedly "mature" audience isn't exactly sophisticated (there's a fair old amount of reliance on 'The Staples' - men and women, sex, class differences) but he has knack for twisting these wet lumps of comedy clay into cleverly crafted art.

On any other night (like last night for example) a comedian relying on ridiculing stereotypes of their nationality for the majority of their laughs would have got a 'stinker' rating from ssp.

In the hands of Byrne however such obvious work (e.g. imitating a hoity-toity toff with a 'Paddy go home' complex) is refreshed into original, energetic and exciting comedy. 

Halfway through a bit on first-time fatherhood Byrne describes kids as "drunk little midget tramps who'll just say mad shit and then leave". For a moment we're not sure if it's kids or himself he's talking about.

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Marcus Brigstocke has always been a bit Radio 4; middle-class, intelligent and a tad smug.

So what better place for him to perform than the festival that is essentially a live version of the sleepy radio channel (literally at some points - Brigstocke has just come from performing Just a Minute)? It's unashamed middle-class armchair liberalism, but there's nothing wrong with that.

In all there are seven Hayite rounds of applause (for anti-Blair, anti-Bush, anti-Littlejohn rants) and the smugness does at points become a bit stifling in a crowded tent in the middle of Wales. But beyond this Brigstocke is charming, interesting and original; everything the Hay crowd would like to think they are. 

He's taken on a harder edge recently, whether it's a reaction to the state of the world or a career move it doesn't matter, he has more bite and that can only be a good thing.

Of course he hasn't become some sort of corduroy-clad Bill Hicks, but he now comes across as one of the few comedians peddling political material because he actually cares.

His act makes you think far more than a lecture from A.A. Gill or Simon Schama ever will.

Josh Widdicombe

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After eight days of intelligentsia gleefully feeding a salivating audience snippets from their latest prose (priced £25 from a book shop, handily, in the tent next door. and I'll be doing a signing rah, rah etc.) Robin Ince and his band of merry individuals swing into town to read the rich snippets from the poorly written.

Ince must be a second hand bookshop owner's dream customer. He's the kind of bibliophile that thinks nothing of bulk buying a set of twelve anthologies entitled simply Stories for Men. His act consists of reading from such thought defying delights and this forms the basis of his comedy routine.

Interspersing Ince's readings come a troupe of comedians all deemed worthy of inclusion in the Book Club, only two of which have any impact in tonight's show. Martin White's accordion playing holds a level of interest but is also a lesson that while an accordion version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights will make you laugh for the first thirty seconds it's impossible to sustain that laughter for the full five minutes.

Jo Neary is, as expected, charming. She keeps her two concept pieces short, leaving you wanting more. However, Natalie Haynes' five minutes were, frankly, forgettable, and Peter Buckley Hill's marathon musical session, including haiku's of every song off Sergeant Pepper, was agonising.

Ince has clearly stumbled across a concept that works, and works very, very well in some cases. The law defying graphs in the book How to Attract Sexy Women (which 'proves' females become sexy by the age of two) was a particular high/low point. You often find yourself thinking: "This man is making a comic career simply from reading bad books out loud." More often this thought is replaced by: "I wish I'd thought of that."

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Mayfair, more than most places, needs some comedy. Amidst the economic gloom hedge-fund managers and investment bankers probably need a laugh and Upstairs at the Masons, the only comedy cub in Mayfair, is trying to do just that. David Doyle heads along to find out if London's most exclusive suburb is game for a laugh...

Paul Foot is infectiously twitchy. As he jumps from his microphone at Upstairs at the Masons, ‘the only comedy club in Mayfair’, to a member of the audience, then to the back of the stage, then hops to a different member of the audience, he has a nervous energy that is absorbing.

He is the bastard child of Russell Brand and Anneka Rice with Pat Sharp’s Fun House mullet – except he is easily funnier than all three.

What makes a great comedian is less about how great their material is and more about what they do with their material.

Paul Foot talked for ten minutes about vans. More accurately, about when you wouldn’t see a van. For those who don’t know, the circumstances in which you will not see a van range from being asleep to wearing special van spectacles, which block out the shape of any van (as long as you move your head at the same speed as the van.)

Whilst ‘the occasions when you will not see a van’ is up there with home furnishings and someone else’s holiday in terms of mundane topics, Foot’s enthusiasm, wit and delivery means the audience is willing to go anywhere Foot’s addled mind meanders.

By way of contrast Stephen Carlin’s acerbic analysis of the mundane challenges established truths.

A perfect accompaniment to Foot’s cerebral fluidity, Carlin is stereotypically Scottish in his slightly hostile directness of style.

He also doesn’t mind flirting with controversy as illustrated when he pointed out that Joseph Stalin may have been a better dad to Jesus than Joseph of Aramathea - “he would have made sure they had a room in the inn."

The same bluntness is more surprising when it comes from rather sweet looking children’s BBC presenter Holly Walsh.

Pondering the entertainment industry’s use of ‘That’s show business!’ as an excuse for any mishaps that happen in front of the camera on stage, Walls examines if the same excuse would apply in other businesses – “That baby’s looking a bit blue – that’s midwifery!”

Walsh is charming in her examination of everyday life, but the length of her set, which could not have been more than ten minutes, left me feeling like I had barely gotten to know her before she was gone.

James Mullinger compered enthusiastically and managed to introduce some lively proceedings into the night but at times the crowd seemed unprepared to fully commit to the evening.

Yet, with a decent line up of good acts, Upstairs at the Masons provided enough mirth to make a few well heeled clients forget that they've just had to sell their Ferrari.

David Doyle  

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(Original review from May 2007)

• Directed by: Andrew Bujalski
• Starring: Justin Rice, Rachel Clift, Andrew Bujalski, Seung-Min Lee
• Release Date: 4 May 2007

Andrew Bujalski's second film as writer, director and actor - about a slacker musician trying to make it in Boston - is a modern masterpiece. Jess Holland talks to him about his commitment to lo-fi filming techniques... and his love of Sly Stallone.

There's a scene in Andrew Bujalski's second film, Mutual Appreciation that captures the complex crackle and shame of desire better than any other film I've seen this decade. Alan (Justin Rice) is sitting next to Ellie (Rachel Clift) on their bed. She's in a long-term relationship with his best friend (played by the writer/director himself). They torturously circumnavigate the subject of their mutual affection, and in a heart-stoppingly bold move, he picks up her hand, and holds it.

That's as melodramatic as it gets in Bujalski's world, where a small cast of twenty-something college graduates drink and talk and curse themselves for being too forward or not forward enough, longing to make some sort of deeper connection. The 32-year-old writer/director/editor/star has been feted by the press and strewn with awards for his lo-fi slices of real life that capture the angst and possibility of being young, over-educated and unemployed. The phrase 'voice of a generation' has been thrown his way, notably by the New York Times, but he brushes off the notion with his characteristic wariness of oversimplifying a complicated story.

"It's just kinda journalistic hyperbole," he tells me over a crackly phone line. Having just finished spring semester as a film lecturer in Boston, he's mid-way through a long drive to Austin, Texas, where he'll be shooting his third film this summer. The project's still shrouded in secrecy, but Bujalski confirms it will be "in the same methodological vein" as his past two features - "cheap, with a small crew and non-professional actors. I think it's only going to get more and more difficult for me to do that in the future so I'm going to try and squeeze one out now, while I'm still young-ish," he says.

The awkward stop-and-start dialogue, lo-fi filming techniques and gently meandering plots of Bujalski's films have led critics to assume that they are just thrown together: improvised and autobiographical. But the opposite is the case. "To make the movies as direct as possible," he explains, "there's very little in the way of stylistic flourishes.

"I think that invites people to assume that I just kinda wrote down what happened to me one morning and put it in a movie, and that's not really true. You take those feelings and then you build something out of them. I write as specific a script as I know how to, and I try to write as much toward what I think are natural rhythms as I can, so I put all the pauses in, and all the 'ums' and 'ahs' and all that."

The result, in the case of Mutual Appreciation, is an intimate portrait of a group of friends - people you could imagine rubbing shoulders with at a gig, or queuing behind at a café - trying to work out what life has to offer them.

When I ask Bujalski about inspiration he's evasive, talking about how he reads his own press too much and is sick of being compared to the same filmmakers over and over.

"I'm sure I've stolen a lot from them. but by the same token you can't help but feel that's a little reductive after you've read it a hundred times.

You'd like to think that that you're still doing something new." He thinks again, and approaches the thought from a new angle, as his characters frequently do - edging around a thought rather than ploughing straight through it.

"So there's all those, maybe obvious influences, but then I think you take things from everywhere. You know, probably the movie I think I've been talking about the most, incessantly for the last few months, is the new Rocky movie. Which I was crazy about, but I can't imagine that. I have yet to be compared to Stallone."