Londonisfunny.com Launch Night

Londonisfunny.com Launch Night

01 May, 2009
by: Emma

Tonight is the launch night for new comedy website Londonisfunny.com, held on the top floor of Brixton's Dogstar pub. By 8:30pm, the room is full to capacity and after a small delay, host Ivor Dembina kicks off proceedings. Dembina regularly hosts the Hamptead Comedy Club so you'd expect a highly polished, confident performance with some easy audience banter to warm up the room right?  Wrong. He haltingly picks people out of the audience to chat to, which is exactly what it is, chat. No comedy. The few attempts at jokes fall flat, apart from one aimed at the organiser's step-mother: "She's probably shagging him" which comes out of nowhere but does at least get the required result – shock and laughter.

Luckily Tom Webb takes over and immediately lifts the room. "Hello!" he yells at us. "Hi", says an American girl in the front row. "Hi? – that's a bit informal." He chides. It's a very confident set but it looks like it might come crashing down when he proceeds to dress up audience members as monsters to re-enact his version of Alien Vs Predator. Surely this can't work? Somehow it does, as Webb builds the drama, shouting at his actors and even making them carry him at one stage, as he continues barking instructions. It's hilarious chaos and shows his mettle as a performer doing such a potentially risky piece.

Newcomer David James' set gets a huge round of applause after he tells some brilliant deadpan anecdotes including one describing the irony of being made to get off a bus sporting a 'There Is No God' banner at St Paul's Cathedral. What was really impressive was that apart from one story, all the material was completely different to what he used at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition when he was placed third in January. Talking to James after the show, he said he tries to write a new minute of material each week, which is commendable when you think how tempting it must be to hang onto the stuff that has earned you such high regard when you're just starting out.

Next up is Caroline Mabey, who plays a rather gormless character with a crush on a male member of the audience. The flirting doesn't really work and some jokes get the odd groan but there are some cracking lines here and there as well: "My boyfriend recently asked me how many people I'd slept with and I didn't want to say too little in case I sounded inexperienced but I didn't want to say too many in case I sounded, you know, a bit AIDS-y?"

A surprise act of the evening is Miriam Elia, who was asked to fill in at the last minute. Elia has written comedy for the BBC and won a Channel 4 short film competition but she tends to pop up randomly on the stand-up circuit so it is good to see her in action tonight. She has a wonderfully offbeat sense of humour, reading to us from the diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990 ("Today I decided not to use the wheel.") and filling us in on what it's like to grow up with artists for parents. Nursery Rhymes include ‘When You're Happy And You Know It Ask Yourself Why?' and 'Postmodern Pat and his Mixed Race Cat.'

Headliner Tim Key doesn't get such a warm response as the last time I saw him and loses his thread a bit by the end. Tonight there is less poetry and more 'awkward' banter in between which seems to cost him his usual glory. Luckily he picks it up at the end with one of his best poems about Eva Braun trying to force Hitler to wear a pair of jeans; a hilariously silly image.

The stand-out act for me is seasoned pro, John Gordillo who performs a mainly observational set with some anecdotes thrown in like how having to listen to his girlfriend's mindless chatter is driving him mad ("I'm essentially paying fuck tax"). Gordillo has a way with his performances where he seems to ponder aloud as if the idea has only just occurred to him and the effect feels very spontaneous and unrehearsed, as if you are privy to the comic process as it's developing in front of you. A true comedy master, he's been in the business for years and unsurprisingly has stand-up nailed.

At the end of the gig Dembina returns to the stage to recap the acts. Except he's forgotten Caroline Mabey's name. "She was memorable." Harsh. Still, him aside, it was a top drawer night so big kudos to organiser Paul Fleckney, the man clearly knows his comedy.

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Emma