Friends of the Mirth
Paul Beaumont takes a look at a typical Friday night down at the Apollo
Me being me, and this being only my second ever comedy gig, I was a little sceptical about certain aspects of last Friday’s line-up at The Hammersmith Apollo. A childrens’ entertainer? Musicians telling jokes? Charity?! Retrospectively, however, my aversion to live comedy was wholly unfounded. I loved it. Being a one-night-only gig, I’m not sure however as to what a Felix report should say other than “ha, I got to see the show and you didn’t”. My perception of reviews is that they are a tool for promoters yearning to sell more tickets to subsequent nights’ shows. Perhaps I’m supposed to plug next year’s concert (it’s an annual thing for ‘Friends of the Earth’, a charity whose main focus for the foreseeable future is Climate Change). Or perhaps I’m supposed to plug comedy gigs in particular. Whatever it is, overall the whole night was exemplary.
As a mathematician, the evening particularly appealed to my inner geek
Our host for the evening, The Inbetweeners’ Greg Davies skilfully compered. Whilst his ‘bulky’ 6’8” frame and ill-fitting T-Shirt was the cause of much discomfort for the front three rows of the stalls, it was also the main subject of his self-degradation and consequent enjoyment of the audience.
As a mathematician, the evening particularly appealed to my inner geek. Richard Herring, after warming up with a few disconnected jokes finally stuck with the story of his Fererro Rocher Valentines Day promise, as well as to how his failure to appreciate exponential growth (\Sigma{2^{years together}}) will bankrupt him.
Headliner Tim Minchin stuck with the mathematical tack and convinced the audience that comedians who try out new material in small groups aren’t taking large enough sample sizes – and that anything below the Apollo’s (sold-out) capacity of three-thousand two hundred would make the test unfair. He noted that 90% of the audience had no idea what a p-value was, and that out of those that did, 90% would again notice he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. With any sample size, Minchin’s “new” material – a song called ‘Context’, which he sang twice (once with only half the words, and once with the full set) – rivalled, in my opinion some of his classics.
crude, yet hilarious ‘alternative’ verses slurred by as the wine took its toll.
A musical interlude just prior to the interval caught me slightly off guard; Badly Drawn Boy, the once homeless man, wasn’t quite what I was expecting from the evening, but he seemed to go down well with the majority of the audience. The musician’s jokes however, were slightly less well received; his tales weren’t a patch on those told by his colleagues over the course of the evening.
The music continued and took a Christmas-sy twist after the interval with “childrens’ entertainer” Jeremy Iron, and his drinking-game version of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Thankfully the evening hadn’t been marketed at children, as, apart from the FIVE GOLD RINGS, not many of the lyrics remained intact: crude, yet hilarious, ‘alternative’ verses slurred by as the wine consumed as part of Iron’s drinking-game took its toll.
The encore for the evening transported me back to three years to school via a song I remember singing at my own Leavers’ concert. Minchin closed with a magical audience participation rendition of Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’. Performed in pitch black, the song completed a perfect eclectic mix of entertainment, calling a close on a superb evening.
