Spent a few hours looking like a tourist (so basically fitting in) today as I wandered the streets getting to know the city. It reminds me of Melbourne with its beautiful architecture, wide streets, good coffee everywhere and its both warm and raining. They have one of those bike hire systems here too, only its better here because you don't have to wear a helmet! Yay for Acquired Brain Injury. When you consider that Melbs has the 3rd largest comedy festival behind Edinburgh and Toronto, having been here to see the scale of the thing, we are a distant 3rd in terms of scale, however it is good to note that we are not a distant runner up in quality. I took the chance today to see two shows I hadn't planned on seeing and i am very glad I did. While chatting with a flyer distributing guy as we sheltered from the rain, I was offered a free ticket to see a show called "Uri & Me" by a UK comedian named Nathan Penlington. Basically Penlington is a guy slightly obsessed with Uri Geller...remember him, the spoon bending psychic guy? Yeah. This was an unusual premise, but sticking to my rule of trying to see whatever comes up (especially when the price is right) I went along. With a gentle hint of piss-take, Penlington takes us through some of the odd stuff Geller did with his "career" - from books and board games to a pop album and his penchant for litigation. This is not so much a laugh-out-loud show as a light-chuckling effort but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
After leaving that show I was handed a flyer for a show called "Astrology", a stand-up show by British born Indian comedian Ahir Shah. The flyer said good things (who is going to put bad things on their own flyer?) so i was sold, especially because the ticket was only £5. This show was the first time (and I'm sure it wont be the last time) in the festival that I felt a cultural divide. Not from Shah being Indian, but from him being British. This was not something that I expected to happen from any English speaking comedians but it happened about half a dozen times in the show as he referenced either Brit pop culture or politicians that I had no idea about at all. That's no fault of his at all and didn't take away from the show for everyone else. His sometimes aggressive, repetitive delivery had the unfortunate effect of reminding me of Ben Elton's stand-up, of which I am not a fan. Fortunately, that's not how the whole show goes down. It's very well put together with solid laughs throughout but the bits that really shone were the honest, unscripted bits such as when a Welsh/Indian woman in the crowd ruined a punchline and we got to see his razor-sharp mind in action while he had a laugh telling her off for ruining the big pay-off. A bloody good effort for a solo stand-up debut.
After leaving that show I was handed a flyer for a show called "Astrology", a stand-up show by British born Indian comedian Ahir Shah. The flyer said good things (who is going to put bad things on their own flyer?) so i was sold, especially because the ticket was only £5. This show was the first time (and I'm sure it wont be the last time) in the festival that I felt a cultural divide. Not from Shah being Indian, but from him being British. This was not something that I expected to happen from any English speaking comedians but it happened about half a dozen times in the show as he referenced either Brit pop culture or politicians that I had no idea about at all. That's no fault of his at all and didn't take away from the show for everyone else. His sometimes aggressive, repetitive delivery had the unfortunate effect of reminding me of Ben Elton's stand-up, of which I am not a fan. Fortunately, that's not how the whole show goes down. It's very well put together with solid laughs throughout but the bits that really shone were the honest, unscripted bits such as when a Welsh/Indian woman in the crowd ruined a punchline and we got to see his razor-sharp mind in action while he had a laugh telling her off for ruining the big pay-off. A bloody good effort for a solo stand-up debut.
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