The fun continues, Comedy Store Players take 2
Sunday 24th August, The Comedy Store, London.
Line up: Steve Steen, Steve Edis, Richard Vranch, Lee Simpson, Andy Smart, Greg Proops.
Sadly due to family commitments this trip was much more a flying visit to London - hell, it was only planned on the Tuesday, and when I say planned I mean impulsively decided upon when I discovered Greg was playing a third date at the Store and Nutella was going!
Entirely uneventful train journey, arrived to discover Nutella had been a sweetheart and waited alone in the queue and thus secured us seriously primo seats on the front row!! Spent the time before the show drinking g&t, chatting about Wednesday’s show, which the lucky girl also saw, and generally fangirling, tho perhaps at less intensity than last Sunday when the amount of said fangirling was multiplied by 8! Oh, and I almost forgot! Pre-show chats also involved me reading aloud the fic which I had begun on the train back from LAST Sunday’s performance, to my pleased embarrassment (Nutella couldn’t read my writing, at least, that was her excuse!) First time I’ve ever shared my fic in person, outside of the internet since I was at school, so that was cool if weirdly scary!
So, the players jog on, and my initial impressions run thusly: Greg is wearing the same stripy shirt as on Sunday, but his hair is more bouffant; Steve Steen is much older than I remember him; Lee is a cutie who looks very much like an ordinary chap, and Richard Vranch is just GORGEOUS! He has only improved with age, he has the most piercing blue eyes and lovely slightly bent nose…and a not half bad bod, either!
After a few suggestions taken by Richard to get the audience in the mood, then speedily onto…
Conducted Story Telling
‘Snow White and the Coat of Arms’, the object courtesy of Nutella. The story was something along the lines of Dopy (or Dolby, I couldn’t quite catch Greg’s intonation and it kept changing - more of changing names in Musical later) keeping diamonds in his ears in order to set himself up as a Lord, Snow White had stolen the Queen’s Magic Mirror - which accused her of stealing, to which of course her reply was “fuck off talking mirror!” Pissed Off, the eighth dwarf (the one who HADN’T slept with Snow White!) made an appearance as the tallest dwarf in the kingdom, having won the basketball championships. I have no idea how it ended, but Steve Steen won, and there was much rejoicing.
Freeze Tag
A particularly fun game with much slashy goodness, this time around.
Opened with Steve on one leg, Lee doing a ‘monkey dip, or monkey dick’ - whatever that might be! He settled for taking up a monkey pose, knees bent and arms swinging. Set on a pirate ship - Steve, a pirate with one leg, said he couldn’t wait until Lee the Cabin Boy’s balls dropped, Lee mimed carrying a large globe under each arm and said neither could he - they were damned heavy.
Greg tagged Lee out and started selling ‘Monkey dick, fresh and hot’, one of which Steve bought to use as a pegleg - which worked very well, when he walked it made him feel ‘saucy’.
Andy tagged out Steve (I think) and there was business with him waving around his arms, where he was an overexcited air traffic controller amongst other things.
Somehow this led to a great amount of headless-chicken style running around the stage, beginning with Greg with a net chasing Andy as a giant butterfly to add to his collection, then Richard chasing Greg as a relay-runner, shouting ‘pick up the baton’ because he kept dropping it. Greg complained of being tired and asked for a piggy back as Richard could make it to the finish line being fast.
So then a series of players jumped onto Richard’s back, starting with Lee, who first says he has nothing to say, he just wanted to swap in there, then comments that he hasn’t done that for years! Richard asks ‘what’s do you see? What’s the girls changing rooms like?’ Lee tells him he can probably feel the answer in the small of his back. Andy takes pity on Richard and tags him out, then upon picking up Lee says to Richard ‘I see what you mean’ with reference to the ‘evidence’…*shakes head* Steve then swapped in, to much amusement - Steve not being a svelte figure of a man. Steve then continued a running gag throughout freezetag, in which he was Andy’s unwanted girlfriend (who at some point turns out to be a man: ‘all girls have a little stubble’) insisting that they can make the relationship work!
At one moment, Steve is bending forward in front of Lee(?) and says ‘I don’t want to be in the choir any more, Father.’ Nothing like a Catholic child-molestation joke, eh? So Greg tags out Lee and Steve is still poised, mouth open and ready, but Richard tags Greg out before he has a chance to say anything! Poor Steve comments that he feels ‘dirty’. Richard then blows Steve the blow-up doll up.
An Olympic medal giving ceremony occurs, with Lee, Andy and Steve- kneeling in a return of Pissed Off, the tallest dwarf from CST.
Greg tags out Steve and Lee, kneels in front of Andy and makes some comment about ‘Mr President’ before miming unzipping Andy’s trousers, lying on his back and holding his legs in the air, until Andy holds them for him! Comments, ‘I thought we could try something different’. Steve tags Greg out and, prostrate before Andy, declares, ‘We can make this relationship work!’ and end scene.
Name that Job (I have no idea of the real title of this game, so will continue to make them up until someone sets me straight!)
Steve was the lucky(?) player to guess his obscure job, which was the man who, in the Gobi desert, placed diamond clappers in the bells that decorate the costumes used in the Olympic closing ceremony, for Safeway, thanks to the woman who shouted out oh so amusingly, ‘wouldn’t it be easier for him to just work in Safeway?’ Yes, yes it would, but it wouldn’t be much of a game now, eh?
The setting was skiing, with Andy as the instructor.
Clues included:
The ringing of the avalanche-warning bell five times, ie. Five bells, ie Olympic symbol, courtesy of Andy.
Greg the fit safety trainer showing off his ‘safety demonstration insects’ - his ‘Stop bee’ and his ‘Go bee’ which went too fast.
The ‘bee shin’ which Andy found and had obviously dropped off one of the safety insects (Beijing, y’see - very clever man, that!)
The choice of the ‘dangerous way’ down the mountain or the ‘safe way’ c/o Lee
And the masterpiece of convoluted but genius clues again from Lee: who enumerated the important rituals of the locals, one of which included offering a song of apology to the mountain in case you cause an avalanche. A song sung through the claw of a bird, in which you sing how much money you will offer to the mountain to apologise should you cause an avalanche. In other words, a ‘Claw-sung sorry-money’. It took Steve FOREVER to get ‘closing ceremony’ from that, but it was a wonderful clue!
And as part of that song, there was the song sung when hit over the head with a cosh - the ‘cosh-tune’ of the ‘claw-sung sorry-money’. Although that was less good, Lee admitting ‘I’ve fucked up’ when he mentioned the word ‘ceremony’ at the start. Still, it didn’t seem to help Steve any more than his clue! ;)
The Welshmen who overlooked the ski-course on mounds(?), there being an Evan-mound, a Hugh-mound and a Di-mound. Lee again.
Oh, and Andy who’s job was to be a ‘clapper’ - ie one who clapped.
So after that hilarity came
Translation.
Lee was a Columbian who was to talk about wicker baskets and coffee, with Richard translating (have I mentioned how much I love Richard and how blown away I was by his improve skills, having only ever seen him mute on WL and briefly in the Tony/Richard kiss moment from their stand-up? No? Well I do!)
Lee opened by saying that he lived in Columbia, which was on a hill. There was some mention of making wicker baskets, but the real interest for me came when he moved onto coffee.
He made two types of coffee, normal coffee, and Marks and Spencer Coffee. Sometimes he thought he could hear Asda spies in the bushes, whom he could recognise by the sound of the ‘ass-slapping’ (for any non-Brit readers of this, the adverts for Asda (owned by Walmart, btw) feature people slapping their back pockets to demonstrate the jingle of money as Asda is so cheap, and the slogan ‘that’s Asda price!’). So Lee mimes catching some spies at great length with much slapstick physical humour, and appear to beat them up and then throw them on a fire! He by turns mimed the poor burning Asda-spies in the fire and the Columbians warming themselves by it and laughing - it was hilarious! Richard translated as ‘we have very strict by-laws in my country’ or something similar!
So then Lee showed us where he kept the coffee in the basement, banging his head on the beams in the process and cursing the light, then producing a torch with great aplomb. There were many types of coffee in the basement, but he had a rodent problem. He took care of this by taking the torch, shining it under his face and making faces or, to put it as Richard did ‘scare the shit out them!’ Greg incidentally loved this and laughed a whole lot, which I spotted through my own streaming eyes.
It was a GOOD game of translation!
Styles
Right, this was on a Pirate ship AGAIN - I think someone in the audience got over-excited by the piratical moments of Freeze Tag!
Greg and Steve were going to plunder the Queen’s Vessel (I was totally expecting smutty jokes from that but none were forthcoming - obviously they were saving them up for the musical - see later!) in the styles of:
School Musical - during which Steve would NOT let Greg sing, he kept ending one verse and then, just as Greg was drawing breath, starting another! It was hilarious!! Greg did eventually get to sing, and made up for it with a good song and some niiice ass-shaking which I, on the front row, enjoyed a great deal! He also hugged Steve from behind and they swayed for a while which was very cute.
Gilbert and Sullivan - which really excited me as I’m a huge nerdy G&S fan, and once again Steve hardly let Greg get a note in edgeways!
Horror - Vampire!Greg (obviously having a flashback to Wednesday’s performance, according to Nutella who was there - *envy*) responds happily to Steve’s suggestions ‘let’s have a drink’ by pulling away his shirt to expose his neck and bending over him - a move I personally found pretty darn sexy! Steve changes it to ‘let’s have something to eat’, and Greg happily replies, ‘ok, lets eat’ and continues to make for Steve’s neck.
Jacobean Tragedy - in which Greg used the line ‘thy mouth doth waggle like a duck’s butt sliding down an icy slope’ which shocked me no end, tho it pleased me too, as he used that EXACT line to Steve Frost in a WLUK styles set in prison! Recycling material though, Greg? Tut!
Chekov - in which they both spoke in overly-dramatic faux-Russian which was genius, and mimed looking through a telescope I think, which rather confused me, but then I’m no Chekov expert. I suppose they were pirates so they could have been sighting land…or a ‘Seagull’…! ;)
At some point Greg ordered Steve to go ‘down below’ to which he replied, ‘but I only do that on a Friday’.
And another moment which amused me was Richard’s response to someone shouting out ‘silent’ as a suggestion to theatre - “we call that mime.” He can be quite a sarky wit apparently, that man. Have I mentioned how much I love him? Oh, I have? *grin*
Okay, phew, so that was the end of the first half, and very good it was too! The interval Nutt and I spent frantically trying to remember what had happened and taking hastily scribbled notes. Which meant that it was the second half before we knew it- which was wonderful!
Right, I’m not sure that I’m going to finish these notes at any kind of a sane hour, so I shall post this first half first and hopefully get the rest up later tonight - somehow I was able to pay much more attention on the second time to the Store, I suspect because I was slightly less obsessed with the fact that Greg Proops was JUST THERE! Although having him kneel like two feet away from me at times during Freeze Tag was still pretty mind-killing! I SO wanted to touch his hair…or any other part of him, really! ;)