Inverness, 23-2 May 2012

SOONER or later there had to be an eruption. Bill Bailey is a comedy volcano.

OVER the last four or five years the build-up of comedy in the Highlands has been steady and unrelenting and that build up, like the pressure inside a volcano had to burst out at some point. Bill Bailey’s performance, on Thursday night at Eden Court, was the kind of comedic explosion that has been threatening to occur in the Highland capital for several years.

Bill Bailey - simply superb

This explosion came as part of the Highland’s first Comedy Festival, Happyness.  Over the past few years more and more comedy has been bubbling to the surface with venues like Eden Court, the Ironworks and Hush all making their contribution to the development of a comedy scene in the city in recent years.  A comedy festival has been a much needed development for a long time.

Bailey would not look out of place on the set of  The Lord of the Rings. His beard, bald head and flowing hair (around the bald head, that is) give him a goblin-like appearance that serves him well in his stand up performances – there is something other worldly about his comedy as well as his looks.

From the very beginning of his performance on Thursday night Bailey showed consummate comedic skill as he gently engaged with the Eden Court audience, ridding them of their inhibitions and skilfully setting them up for the comedy sucker punches to come.

Surrounded by guitars, keyboards and a variety of weird stringed instruments, Bailey pranced about the stage as he gradually lured the audience in to his comedic imagination. His act built continuously through a hugely entertaining two hour show. By the end Bailey revealed a comic genius that outshines the sun and threatens to leave even the very best of Britain’s current stock of funny men in the shade.

Bailey’s musical skill is clearly equal to that of his ability as a comedian. Throughout the show he effortlessly moved from one instrument to another, satirising musical styles as diverse as Heavy Metal, Classical music and Reggae. Bailey doesn’t sing funny songs, as so many other performers do; rather, he is able to make musical jokes where the music becomes the comedy, something in which he displays a rare originality.

By the end of the night Bailey received two standing ovations in a performance which was the best live comedy gig I have seen in the Highlands or anywhere else for that matter. I think he did five encores, there may have been more, and I was laughing too much to count. Bailey oozes raw talent in everything he does. One minute he was dazzling us with his acting skills, the next becoming a rock god with his guitar. Bailey was simply superb, and a great opening to Inverness’s first and long overdue comedy festival.

Follow that, if you can.

CUT TO: Hootenanny’s Friday Night.

The room is hot and dark and twenty or so people are fidgeting uncomfortably on small stools in the venue’s middle floor bar.  I think I’m more uncomfortable than most as I’ve been forced to sit at the front which is not a good place for a reviewer, I’m more used to skulking in the darkness at the back.  It’s tricky for the comedians too as they won’t know how far to go with me. Unlike most of the rest of the audience, I can bite back, albeit in a review a couple of days later.

As Perth-based comedian Joe Heenan took to the stage you could see he knew he was going to have to work hard to pull the audience together.  A small crowd can be tough, but Heenan’s easy manner and instantly likeable demeanour drew the audience to him in the first minutes.  A veteran of the Scottish comedy scene, it’s immediately obvious that he has played hundreds of rooms like this and knows exactly how to engage with his audience.

The first act on stage was Patrick Monahan, who instantly leapt into the crowd ensuring that his interactional style of comedy made maximum impact.  Monahan grew up in Teesside with Irish and Iranian parents, an upbringing that has left him with an accent which is almost impossible to categorise.

In contrast to Bill Bailey’s performance on the main stage of Eden Court, where the performer, a bit like the polar bears in a zoo, is kept well away from the audience by the gulf between them and the stage, this was comedy in the wild.  With no safety barrier between audience and performer.

I’ve often said that comedy at its best should be dangerous, but even I was surprised when Monahan managed to hit me in the nose with the microphone.  That was just a bit more danger than I was expecting, thank you very much. The comedian pretended it was an accident but, as I am sure most comedians have long harboured a deep desire to hit a reviewer on the nose, I remain unconvinced and imagined him back stage high fiving the other comedians.  “Did you see that, I got him right on the nose?”

It was a delight to see Zoe Lyons in such a small setting when she, along with everyone else on the bill, probably is used to playing much bigger venues.  The Brighton-based comedian, who had never travelled as far north as Inverness before, was hilarious in her child-hating accounts of friends visiting her in her seaside home.  She also gave a very accurate description of camping in the Highlands with her depiction of a rain soaked hell under canvas.

The final act of the evening was Bruce Morton, whose emaciated form reminds me of Tim Burton’s Jack Skellington character every time I see him.  Morton was, as ever, brilliantly inventive, mixing improvisation and material effortlessly blended in a set where he riffed as much on his fellow comedians as he did off the audience.

Morton always gives you the impression that he has no idea what he’s going to say next and he certainly displays an amazing talent for changing track midway through a performance.  Morton, who was, briefly, a resident of Inverness, is never shy about injecting a little bitterness into his act which gave his performance a distinct bite.

CUT TO:  Hootenanny’s Sunday Night

It’s still hot outside and Sunday night’s in the Highland capital are not known for packing in rampant comedy crowds.  Joe Heenan is looking tired as he leaps on to the small stage at Hoots. Tonight the audience is smaller than Friday and he has a higher mountain to climb than at the start of the weekend. Despite that, and the indelible impression the Gaelic talent night he presided over on Saturday, has left on him, he is determined to do a good job and slowly ramps up the enthusiasm of the crowd, all 15 of them.

In this he is helped by Glaswegian comedian, Davey Conner, whose set covers the traditional topics of parenthood and Glaswegian drug culture. His material is slick and polished, however, in a set that quickly engaged with the audience and helped them raise some laughs that got the gig going.

The show moved on with Lewisham’s Rob Beckett, a likeable and witty young man with a keen sense of the absurd.  Although still in the early days of his career he looks like someone who we’ll see a great deal more of.  Finally there was an Australian comedian, Hannah Gadsby, who reminded me of how Harry Potter would have looked if he’d gone over to the dark side.

Hannah displayed a beautifully awkward style and a savage wit as she talked about her experiences as a lesbian and the attitudes she has encountered performing in her stand up in her native Tasmania.  Although her material could have been a little tighter Hannah was particularly well liked by the female portion of the audience who enjoyed her sharp observations contrasting the attitudes of men and women.

ROLL CREDITS

The team at Happyness should be congratulated for bringing together the first Inverness Comedy Festival.  The events of the four days pulled together a wide variety of acts ranging from regulars on the Scottish comedy circuit to performers of an international standard.

As the festival’s Artistic Director Karen Koren explained at the outset of the festival: “It is our intention to create a Festival that Inverness, the Highlands and Scotland can be proud of and will become a world class comedy event.”

It is always difficult doing anything for the first time and the festival team did a great job of bringing such a varied programme to the Highlands.  In time it’s hoped that the Festival will grow and it could become a significant event raising the profile of the Highland capital in the comedy world and, in turn, bringing the Highlands to the attention of the comedy going public worldwide.

FADE TO BLACK

© John Burns, 2012

Links

• Happyness