Bar Risa, Hythe Bridge StreetSaturday 16 April
After an hour and a half of freely flowing beer and copius numbers of cocktail pitchers, the Saturday night Jongleurs crowd were always going to be up for a laugh. This certainly made it easier for compere Andy White as he worked his way through some standard audience banter complete with reasonably witty topical comments, before handing a thoroughly warmed-up audience over to Kevin Dewsbury. Dewsbury delivered a series of wry social observations, making it clear what makes him a Kevin and definately not a ‘Kev’, and sharing his frustration at the frequent need to explain that Cheshire is not in fact populated by the fit female denizens of Hollyoaks: “’Cos if it were, why would I leave?” Quite.
Next up was self-proclaimed ‘Souf London geezer’ Harry Denford, a man whose bombastic voice is second only to his girth. Blustering on stage in a roar of expletives, Denford’s presence commanded complete attention and he quickly gained control of his audience. After dispensing with the obligatory “fat bastard” and :Souf London” gags, he moved onto more original territory by recounting his experiences as a former airline pilot and his way with the ladies. In these routines he deftly led seemingly predictable gags in unexpected directions, delivering punchy lines to confound the audience. He used bully- boy tactics, and even managed to force some unsuspecting males from the crowd onstage for what seemed little more than a torrent of unnecessarily harsh abuse. But towards the end of the show, even this achieved a comic climax as he somehow convinced them to perform a Full Monty.
With a regular Tuesday night slot at London’s Comedy Store and numerous TV and radio appearances under his belt, veteran circuit performer Sean Meo came equipped with a reputation for brutal satire. He began his set tamely, playing the laconic Brit delivering pithy observations on the state of the British railways and illegal immigrant London cabbies. As the set progressed, Meo’s profoundly macabre humour knew no bounds, venting spleen on Germans and starving African children with equal vehemence. Gags about terrorist taxi drivers and deformed midgets occasionally stretched beyond the bounds of decency, yet Meo broadly managed to walk the fine line between humour and discomfort with the ease of a consummate professional.
Meo’s biggest crowd pleaser was undoubtedly his audience banter. Within minutes he honed in on his chosen unwitting targets for the evening, manipulating their responses to his seemingly innocuous questions and then launching into a relentless barrage of cutting jibes. With a group of hairdressers in the front row, he was never going to be short of material. Despite often resorting to cheap insults, his vituperative wit remained close enough to real life to ensure that laughs were plentiful: proof positive that well-aimed invectives will always be funny however unashamedly un-PC.ARCHIVE: 0th week TT 2005
Jongleurs
