Tonight I was in Whitwell, 25 minutes or so from home, at the Holmefield Arms for the Laffa Cakes comedy night. Apart from the lack of signal here, this is a nice location and it’s not hard to imagine this being a night that can run for a long time. Numbers weren’t bad tonight and it was lovely to see Craig Webster in the audience, as I miss seeing him at The Lescar. The rest of the audience were decent, but had a slight tendency to talk and had an annoying habit of resetting themselves every so often, so it always felt like the comics were having to rebuild the energy in the room every few minutes. The star of the show was Jake, a 12 year old, sat right in the middle of the front row.
Greg Philips (MC)
Philips had a good night compering. Having a kid on the front row could have been tricky, but having read the room correctly, Greg asked him a couple of questions that received huge laughs and this diffused any possible tension amongst the acts concerning the kids’ presence. I like watching Philips and people are always happy to open up to him. Some of the answers he received led on to more questions and whilst it’s possible he’d have gained more momentum moving on a bit sooner in a few cases, he found out quite a lot about the audience that the other comedians could use and that was ideal.
Graeme Rayner
There was quite a lot of good stuff in Rayner’s set. He opened strongly with a callback to Greg’s compering and the Santa material was both timely and funny. It felt as if he’d written it specially for the season and that’s always nice. Wood was good and the reveal on the names worked very well. Rayner’s closing routine was rock solid and hit a high. It perhaps wouldn’t hurt to swap Clooney for Tom Hardy, as Clooney might possibly be a bit dated now, but that’s no big deal. What Rayner would benefit the most from, though, is tightening up his set ups a bit, because if these were a touch shorter his set would be a lot more punchy. This was a good opening to the night.
Dan Lythe
Lythe is a quality act who writes interesting material and tonight the room dipped in and out of his set, really liking some parts, but not all going with all of it. This was a shame, as he did well, but it deserved a lot more. I’ve seen him do very well with this material at enough gigs to know that this was an odd reception. Lythe is an experienced act and this didn’t throw him. I think he knew that his performance was a strong as ever.
Alex Camp
It’s been a while since I last saw Camp and whilst he wasn’t at all bad then, he’s come on since and gave an improved performance tonight. He began with some nice room work and raised the energy. Camp is good at thinking on his feet and there was plenty of good stuff in his set. The shit towns song went down a real treat.
Jon Pearson
Big Jon is a cracking act and he can go in various directions. He can do a set full of room work, material, or a bit of both. It’s great seeing him react to an audience member and go off on a tangent. This means that you can see him multiple times and his performance will still feel fresh. Jon’s opening room work struck a real chord with the audience and his material was just as strong, with the criticism of the running group in neighbouring Clowne bringing of great joy to the audience. His material on relationships was rock solid, as was his response to the careers advice that he received. This was a set that I could have happily enjoyed more of.
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