The Comedy Club at the Queen’s Theatre for August was something I really didn’t want to miss. The compere was Ninia Benjamin from BBC’s ‘Three non-blondes’, Seann Walsh and Jarred Christmas were the comedians.

         Ninia came on and started to get the crowd going with a variety of her general ramblings and really laid into the chavs on the front row. It was a pity they weren’t actually there but it made good comedy. It didn’t take long to distinguish the two parts of the audience into the rabble and the posh and became part of the entire show. Even the laughing for particular jokes came from one side or the other and generally swearing and being rude wasn’t taken too well, though a lot of the best jokes were the crudest from all three of them.

           Seann Walsh came on and did his bit but often took a little too long between his funny bits (the audience weren’t exactly helping him along and if you’ve ever been up on stage you know you need as much help as you can get) but they were worthwhile when they came.

          The beard, the weird look, the jeans and the mad shirt made it look like he and the third act, Jarred Christmas, had started off doing the Monty Python lumberjack sketch, ended up doing a masked robbery at a curtain factory and forgotten to cut holes in the eyes-  Yee ha and Jarred came onto the stage, all the way from New Zealand on the back of an emu, or so his story went. A trip to Australia had left him with disturbing memories of Bernie Clifton, although this time it was him on a real bird.

          It’s never wise to take on Australians at a game of dare and after leapfrogging onto it’s back was taken on the strangest trip the outback could supply- forty miles an hour in whichever direction it was going in at the time, only it wasn’t looking forward-only at him, determined to get him off.  Emus have bigger eyes than their brains and can’t work out that to get someone off your back you throw them off. The description of his ride was hilarious, along with the rest of his act. When you get acts of his calibre at places like this, you book your ticket as soon as they go on sale.

Tim. Coyle