The Book Club - 25th January 2006

This weeks Book Club had a buzz about it. I’m sure in part it had to do with the articles in the press, and publicity surrounding the National tour which begins in April. So much so that we booked a week and a half in advance and arrived mega early to secure our seats.

As we stood outside the Lowdown entrance it became more and more apparent that we were in for a busy night, as more and more comedians and hangers-on made there way downstairs. Doors are normally at 7.30pm but by 8pm we were still waiting wondering if there was any more room left down there. Not only that but we’d seen Robin’s mate Ricky Gervais head down there along with Jonathan Ross.

Anyway, we did get in, and were one of the few lucky ones to get seats and a table.

So with an audience packed out with club owners, comedians (Ben Moor, Arnold Brown, Alex Horne etc) Jonathan Ross, Endemol researchers it was more like a special private comedy club than ever.

Did I not mention the Book Club is going BIG in a previous blog entry?

Robin joked that there were 36 acts on, and that we would zip through them and be finished before 12…. Ha ha ha. Anyone who’s a regular knew it was going to descend into chaos. And given that Johnny Candon was in the building it seemed highly likely.

Martin played 3 songs over the course of the evening, including a Kate Bush and a Babylon Zoo song, (which members of the audience knew more words that Martin, and so should be ashamed of themselves.)

Daniella Ward was/is Andy McNabb. Wearing a balaclava the argument ran I am Andy McNabb why can’t I be? Do you know what I look like? Was actually quite convincing in her argument.

Chris Neil bought along Jodie Marsh’s book, but read from her blog. Now here is something you wouldn’t have expected to hear me say, ever; I’m a member of Jodie’s website and have read from her blog. Ohmigod is she deluded. She really does think very highly of herself and her writing skills. If you want a laugh go here.

Ricky Gervais. Yes, Ricky did a slot, hence Jonathan Ross was down there. Now rather than just go on stage as himself he came on as a new character Derek, who I can only describe as going for the Hugh Dennis character “Milky Milky” look.

Scruffy clothes, Short jumper, trousers to high up, greasy hair smacked down to his forehead, and an old cheap sports bag across his shoulders. Very much going for the geek/mentally ill look. Derek was trying out comedy for the first time, badly. It was quite funny, painfully so at times, since we all new it was Ricky but wondered what the hell he was doing. It took a while to register what he was doing. He corpsed a few times as Robin was just off stage putting him off (not on purpose I’m sure.)

Josie Long performed live boggle during one of the breaks. In one on one challenges she triumphed in all but one game.

Peter Buckley-Hill. I think most people will agree his style of delivery is quite intimidating. Thankfully he stuck to just playing a few songs tonight, including one about the Thames Whale, and was better for it.

James Bachman. I didn’t catch this guys name as he came on as Papa Christmas, it’s only with the help of the Chortle that I managed to work out who he was. His alter-ego is the Dictator of Papa Christmas Land. He fit in well with the Book Club crowd, being relaxed in his delivery, corpsing halfway through, and most importantly enjoying himself.

The Trap. Their first book reading by Dan was funny, but as Robin said as they left the stage, reviving the work of Hale and Pace. Guess that makes a change from being compared to the Goodies.

Suzanne Andrade. If ever a poet was going to make you think, wow, I didn’t know poetry could be like that, then this is the one. Bizarre, dark, weird, surreal poems, which I rather enjoyed.

Natalie Haynes. Back again with more from Diagnosis Murder. She’s still obsessed and since they’ve taken them off on BBC afternoons she is lost without them. She even gave out the BBC’s complaint line asking us all to ring up and ask for it’s return.

Andrew J. Lederer. An American who dumped his original material in favour of slagging off Diagnosis Murder, claiming Columbo the greatest ever. Surely the most miss-judged material. Having never been before he obviously didn’t realise we were behind Natalie all the way. He ended up just coming across as a typically obnoxious yank. Still it wasn’t that bad. Debating/Arguing isn’t really the Book Club style.

Will Hodgson.

The spikey haired punk comedian with a love of Care Bears bought along books from his childhood found in his parents loft. I found this slightly more interesting than most might have purely because he was picking on Usbourne books. (A supplier so shocking I no longer have to deal with them.) He had a book called Catching Crooks. It taught you how to spot a crook. They wear Striped jumpers apparently. Showed you how to frisk them, and how to take finger prints. As he pointed out, all things that could get you beaten up if you tried it on any of your mates at school.

Hils Barker did a short piece as Stacey McCloud. A character comedy piece, about a woman on the board for some local council body. Quite funny, but by the time she came on we were becoming quite tired. Fatigue was setting in.

After some dodgy moments of Candon on stage, the night finished around 12.15am. Not a bad time, but I got the impression some acts that were hanging around were bumped in favour of finishing before sunrise.

A great evening as always.

God help us if this comedy night ever disappears or moves to a large venue, it just wouldn’t be the same.