Acts that have impressed me the most – November 2022

This has been a fantastic month for live comedy. It’s been almost impossible to narrow the sheer talent I’ve seen this month down. As always, acts who have featured recently are time-barred to give space to others.

Emily Webster

Webster is a very new act, but there’s gold here.

From the night:

This was Webster’s sixth gig and crikey, but she could become something special. She doesn’t so much deliver material as perform it and she sells it in such a way to draw you in and make you feel totally invested in what she is saying. Webster has a keen eye for the funny in the day to day of life, which can be incredibly relatable and hence powerful on stage. For a new act, she was also pretty astute in using Notts Forest as a reference point for this gig and I’d be amazed if she didn’t change that out for just as solid a one for wherever she was gigging. Webster’s style is conversational and low key, but with her natural talent she doesn’t need to be flashy or in your face to get laughs and to entertain a room. I think she’s a real find and with more experience will become a formidable addition to a gig.

Kevin Daniel

He’s wasted in his day job.

From the night:

Wow.

It’s incredibly tempting just to leave it at that, but this was a tip top performance from an absolutely splendid act. The sooner he takes early retirement and does this full time the better the industry will be for it. Daniel is a very astute person and has a cracking comedy brain – this shows strongly in the end product. He opened with 3-4 minutes of room work, where he name checked everyone correctly and made it feel as if he was performing specially for this audience. This is always a powerful opening to a gig.

I was enjoying his room work so much, that I could have quite happily watched him do a full set of it. When it came to material, he went with the vasectomy story, which is an evolving routine that gets better every time I hear it. Whilst telling it, Daniel continued to tie sections of it into the audience and had a couple of people up on stage with him to act part of it out. The added kiss to one, was a brilliant idea. From start to end, this was a powerhouse of a performance. This was one of the rare times I’ve heard an audience try to get an encore for the middle act.

Louis Etienne

There is a heck of a lot to admire here.

From the night:

Etienne is a fairly new act, but I can see him going places. He has a heck of a lot going for him. He’s confident, has stage presence, his material is fresh and intelligent and he already has a touch of polish. I liked him from the first 30 seconds. He opened with some well considered room work, his material was punchy, the routine about patriotism excellent and even the Farrage tattoo, which was possibly a bit too clever for the audience was a solid joke. Etienne is a bookable act.

Honourable Mentions

Alfie Carter, Charlotte Cropper, Danny Deegan, Dom Hatton-Woods, Eddy Midgley, Harry Jenkins, Ian Whitcombe, Kevin McDonnell, Kwame Asante, Matt Stellingwerf,