Ed Byrne / John Shuttleworth
Two catchups - I'm behind due to coypu editing.
Of the two, Byrne was the funnier, on his A Different Class tour (I forget the precise title - but it draws on Pulp's Common People period in its iconography). A lot of talk about the differences between middle and working class culture, and the ways he no longer fits into one whilst not belonging in the other. The differences located by patio doors vs french windows.
In the first half, before a rather good support act name long since lost, he made a comment about how odd it was that Sarah Palin doesn't believe in evolution, yet believes polar bears will learn to cope without the ice caps. He also came up with the perfect excuse for the man caught short after getting completely mullered and having to resort to using the wardrobe: "I'm making the snow melt in Narnia". Got some of the biggest laughs I've heard but - audiences - bah. You know the time it starts. Get there in time.
Shuttleworth I've liked in half hour doses, but a couple of hours of character comedy wore thin, and I think creator Graham Fellows anticpates this by adding Brian Appleton, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer, and Dave Tordoff from Goole. He fits in Ken his neighbour and Mary his wife by use of a mobile, and Tordoff appears "by video link". But the loveable incompetence (songs played on the cheesiest of keyboards with samba and other hideosu rhythms and dubious lyrics) gets tired relatively quickly.Fun, but not quite enough
Of the two, Byrne was the funnier, on his A Different Class tour (I forget the precise title - but it draws on Pulp's Common People period in its iconography). A lot of talk about the differences between middle and working class culture, and the ways he no longer fits into one whilst not belonging in the other. The differences located by patio doors vs french windows.
In the first half, before a rather good support act name long since lost, he made a comment about how odd it was that Sarah Palin doesn't believe in evolution, yet believes polar bears will learn to cope without the ice caps. He also came up with the perfect excuse for the man caught short after getting completely mullered and having to resort to using the wardrobe: "I'm making the snow melt in Narnia". Got some of the biggest laughs I've heard but - audiences - bah. You know the time it starts. Get there in time.
Shuttleworth I've liked in half hour doses, but a couple of hours of character comedy wore thin, and I think creator Graham Fellows anticpates this by adding Brian Appleton, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer, and Dave Tordoff from Goole. He fits in Ken his neighbour and Mary his wife by use of a mobile, and Tordoff appears "by video link". But the loveable incompetence (songs played on the cheesiest of keyboards with samba and other hideosu rhythms and dubious lyrics) gets tired relatively quickly.Fun, but not quite enough