So Thursday night at The Royal George was one of the most fun gigs I’ve MC’d in ages. I was still buzzing when I woke up this morning. Looking at the line-up before the show started I knew it was going to be a great show, but what evolved as the night went on was something just fabulous. Purely by chance, the majority of the line-up was G&B regulars, which lead to what can only be described as an evening of call-backs…from one act to the next. Anyone who says there’s no such thing as a comedy community now would have had their minds changed by last night. Although, if you were in the audience of G&B for the first time, f**k knows what you would have made of it all. First to the stage was the brilliant Eoghan Collins. Eoghan gave the crowd a brilliant set, leaving us all wishing we’d started the show at 2pm. It was then over to Matt Withers and the great debate of 2025: should there ever be a Sir Gavin? Rohan Ashar then threw some gags at the crowd that were going to get chucked about like a comedy volley ball for the rest of the night. Our very own Barbara Fernandez was next with why you can’t joke about killing yourself to your therapist before Casey Stephen Jack told us that we get a bad rap over here because, as a tall, blond immigrant, he’s had nothing but good vibes. Lucy Jenner then gave us an insight into just why we should appreciate the integrity afforded us by a cashless society. After Lucy was Martin Ashworth and what might be the world record of stellar call backs in a five minute set. I was sore with laughter! Molly Tanner (aka Mary Taylor) confessed that she never uses the C word indoors, so spends a lot of time just sitting swearing in her car these days. The fabulous Sonny Savage was next with his New Year’s resolution: he’s going to stop watching porn on his phone…in public. Closing the first half was December’s New Act winner, Mani Ahmed. Mani had them in stitches with everything from his mother’s matrimonial determination to the joys of homer Simpson’s gifts and the challenges of the Bible app.
After the break, and a bit of magic through which we discovered the name of Nick’s toxic ex, we got off to a great start thanks to Declan Evans. Declan was on awesome form, whatever time of day he was performing. It was thanks to our next act that the night took yet another turn with its foot on the chaos accelerator. James Wood (pictured) brought to the stage his new creation: a magician. Now this was not a set for the animal lovers or those having to clean up the blood after him, but it was a carnage no need to will forget in a while. Lauren Rivers was next with the squat toilet and her favourite niece before Ryan’s pal, Nick Bain, risked all and almost got expelled from the gay equivalent of The Magic Circle for giving away some of its secret code. Next was Marcos Brito who wowed the crowd with a rap than rocked…and educated! It was then over to a new face to G&B, Louise Fennel (Lord knows what Louise and her friends must have thought of last night!). Louise’s middle name is Amazonia, which is quite the titular demand for someone her height. The evening’s penultimate act was Nick Morey, another act who was on cracking form. Nick’s not a big fan of Gail’s; it’s just Gregg’s with a mortgage. Closing the show was the one and only Pam Ford and possibly the perfect act to bring to a close an evening call-back chaos. Pam had the audience in tears of laughter as she took them from her MMH (massive man hand) suffering to “joys” of motherhood and how she trained for her first marathon: eating 10 Mars Bars a day and streaming old episodes of Question of Sport.
So that was Thursday night and if you weren’t there you really missed out. Thank you to everyone, acts and audience, who made that such a fun gig. Headlining next Thursday we have the brilliant Carwyn Blayney. See you then.