Review of ComComedy Love Comedy
 | "Shudda gone to Com Comedy!" by Helen Starr for remotegoat on 12/02/10 |  |
The club downstairs makes for an intimate venue with booths couches and chairs tightly hugging the stage. Introducing the acts tonight, your relentless host Charlie Partridge bounds on stage, grinning and twitching his way through jokes and banter. His tails of love and lost romance roused the crowd and brought about the valentines theme and after a douse of beat boxing with his rendition of a Snoop Dog sound track the audience was ready for their first act.
Formed in 2009 The Three Englishmen, ironically made of four, had fantastic comic potential with room for both the troupe and the sketches to grow even further. The audience revisited childhood favourite The Crystal Maze with the hilarious opening scene and they continued to draw laughs through to the end. Their energy and drive wasn't to be faulted but it felt like they were falling shy of the big gags, if they dare to push it that little bit further then The Three Englishmen will be ones to watch in 2010.
Unfortunately the next act wasn't able to maintain the comical flow. Sharon Court's tired topics were often tedious and the routine felt rather lazy with jokes about being fat and old. As new material kicked in towards the end the energy picked up and rounded off an average performance.
Next sketch troupe to the stage, Clever Peter, delivered to the audience a burst of clever comedy. Their fast upfront style revived the room as they successfully translated awkward and simple situations into the comedy realm. Not to be fooled by cheap wigs and gorilla sex, this is the kind of engineered work which got them nominated for best comedy show of the Fringe 2009. The audience laughed with the troop as they fell about their own hilarity and comical improv' took over.
A disappointing act followed again with Holly Burn, whose one woman sketch show holds an impressive catalogue of performances. Unfortunately tonight's bizarre, miss-the-mark comedy brought on that awkward dry laughter I'm sure all under the spotlight dread. Her seemingly early stage exit was welcomed but left the audience searching for hidden meaning and depth to uphold the dark performance. I'm afraid it seemed pretty hollow.
Having to recover yet another dampened act, next on stage Paul F Taylor had a hard task to bring the audience back round to comedy. After overcoming his seemingly arrogant style he produced some good material which showed promise for him in the future. If he could relax and let the jokes speak for themselves, Paul's performance could be a huge crowd pleaser.
The final act to take the stage was greeted with slight apprehension, described as a hip-hop comedy group it was unclear what comical value Rob Broderick and Abandonman could bring to the evening. The Irish troupe emerged from the crowd; Rob dressed in a grey suit, his teeth gleaming over his chiseled features. His two co-performers carrying guitars and drums in contrast could have arrived straight from the commune. They made for an interesting looking group and in another twist of contrast were absolutely hilarious. What they produced was witty, fun, hilarious - genius. The group held great stage presence and worked with the audience in an energy-fueled performance. They engaged the room and wholly involved members of the audience with roaring laughter. A romantic tail of love was conjured from the lives of two randomly selected people from the crowd, with improvised lyrics and guitar rhythms they whipped up atmosphere and were a deserving grand finale!
The ComComedy night was a recession-busting £4 and well worth each and every penny.
| Event Venues & Times | |
| finished | The Queen of Hoxton | Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3JX |
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