Omid Djalili at Greenwich Comedy Festival

Omid Djalili at Greenwich Comedy Festival

07 September, 2011
by: Sjk

Tuesday night's Greenwich bill is a mixed bag of old comedy guard and new, with the younger generation winning the day for Sarah Kendell.

Another day, another evening of freezing wind and rain at Greenwich Comedy Festival. The poor sods haven’t had much luck with the weather, but fortunately, they’ve got a line-up that more than makes up for the irritation of wet socks and shivers. It’s not everyone that could completely turn around the mood of a crowd feverishly longing for tea and Hobnobs in bed, but with Spoonfed favourite Jarred Christmas as MC, I’m fairly confident we’re in good hands for tonight’s show.

Despite Christmas having acted as compere everywhere from Glastonbury to Sonisphere Festival this year, I’m yet to see him take on the MC’s mantle, and it’s certainly a sight to behold. Considering the Big Top tent’s gigantic size, there’s the temptation to be simply shouty and boisterous and let that count as one’s act, but the Kiwi takes a different tack to the traditional “MAKE SOME NOISE!” compere. It’s his natural warmth (albeit laced with a lot of rude words) and complete ease with the audience that make him such a top MC – so much so that he almost threatens to overshadow some of the acts at various points in the show. For this fellow Antipodean especially, Christmas gives the comforting sense of being back home, cold beer in hand, standing next to the funniest guy at the backyard barbeque and feeling completely at ease and entertained.

First act Andrew Lawrence, a former if.comedy award winner, is another act I’ve long heard the praises of but am yet to catch in person, and he doesn’t disappoint. Lawrence has a curious, but undeniably unique stage presence – small, pale, high-voiced, he’s not dissimilar to a pixie, if that pixie had a Northern accent and was more than a little sardonic and evil. Though his subjects might be somewhat hackneyed at times – the hell of the morning train commute, the sexual frustration inherent in long-term relationships – it’s the brilliant, bitter rants he builds around them, not unlike a slightly effeminate Doug Stanhope, that bring his act together with fresh, hilarious originality.

If the youthful exuberance of Christmas and Lawrence made up the bulk of tonight’s first half, it’s the more measured, at times slightly self-doubting manner of the old guard that comprises its final hour. Both Boothby Graffoe and tonight’s headline act, Iranian comic Omid Djalili, are circuit veterans renowned for making rare live appearances, and you can see they’re a little rusty and unsure of how their new stuff is going to go down when compared to the three-gigs-a-week confidence of the previous two.

Graffoe’s natural affability carries him through a set of new material that is mixed in quality – the fact that he knows this and admits to it with a sheepish grin makes him infinitely more likeable. Djalili’s delivery is stronger and more lively, but his material is decidedly dated – jokes about the Duchess of Cornwall looking like a horse and German people having no sense of humour are hardly what you’d hope for from a comic fresh out of a long sabbatical from stand-up. Still, there are parts that fall under the ‘oldie but a goodie’ category, such as his ‘awkward face’ that British people do when they don’t know the answer to a question.

It’s a question of audience, of course, and with a lot of older comedy fans and families in tonight, Djalili in particular still gets a very warm reception. But for me, as a member of the younger generation of stand-up fans, it’s the fresher and more innovative side of the bill that keeps me going in tonight’s show, and makes the Big Top a pleasantly entertaining shelter from the cold.

Greenwich Comedy Festival is at the Old Royal Naval College until September 11.

See Spoonfed's Greenwich Comedy Festival guide
See more London stand-up events

Return to Spoonfed's London comedy homepage

Sjk