Dom Robinson reviews

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This was my first visit to Jongleurs and although they didn't have as many acts as the five on view at The Comedy Store I attended three weeks previously, it was still a damn good night. The compere was Andre Vincent, who began with an old favourite of being separated from a partner/wife and the trials that brings, but always made any topic interesting. He also threw in a one-liner, first asking if anyone had to go to work tomorrow, it being a Saturday. A few people said they did. He told them they should phone up to get out of it and just say they're "sick". When their bosses ask how sick they are, you reply, "Well, I'm in bed with my sister..." Of the acts, first up was Anthony King (above right), a name I'd never heard of before, but one who made a good impression, with an act largely based around the premise of taking the simple things in life and twisting them on their side, often with a sick twist. An example soundclip of his performance can be found here. The second act in the first half was half-English, half-German musical maestro Rainer Hersch, who has appeared as a guest on a few Radio 2 comedy shows including Jammin', hosted by Rowland Rivron; and to say that Rainer was as mad as a hatter was an understatement. A fair proportion of the act involved a lot of shouting and manic behaviour, but all of it encapsulating. Highlights of his act included comparing his newly-bought diggerydoo with the attachment for a vacuum cleaner, to find that they sound exactly the same but that the former cost him £100 more as well as a 12,000-mile round trip, he played a section of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (the "Old Spice" advert music, to most of us) but with his interpretation of the lyrics; and, using his electronic keyboard, kept referring back to a version of Left Bank 2, the upbeat music used in the "Gallery" section of Take Hart and then, in a distinctly non-PC mode, told us how "we're sorry, but we cannot return your pictures", in the style of the deaf bloke who used to sound exactly the same on the programme nearly 20 years ago. The way that gag instantly transported you back through time was quite astonishing.

The third and final act was ex-Big Breakfast co-host and host of Channel 4's student gameshow Dicing With Debt, Paul Tonkinson (right). I'd never thought of him being as funny as he turned out to be on the night, but as well as containing life's observations, he also interacted very well with the audience. Before his act was over we'd learned that a guy to his left was part of the group for a girl's hen night, came from (whispered) "Rotherham" and worked as an urban designer, "designing urbans", naturally. A heckler from afar, who asked Paul when he was going to start being funny, was swiftly and expertly dealt with and, when heckled, a girl from the table in front of the stage offered up her handbag for him to hold up and "Oooooo--oh!", a la Shooting Stars. Since he hailed from Yorkshire and was performing in Manchester, he compared the two brilliantly and took the piss out of the Manc scallys you try to avoid when you're out and about, sucking in his cheeks to emulate the drugged-up prats who scuffle about in that way. An example soundclip can be found here. Both soundclips are linked to the Jongleurs website.

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.