Gig Review: Kevin Bridges @ MFC, Wellington, 7 November 2023

Walking into the Michael Fowler Centre last Tuesday night I worried that I might already know all of Kevin Bridges’ best material. I’ve seen so many online clips of the prolific comedian’s live performances across the past decade or so, I feared it could be a night of few genuine surprises.

But that outcome, of course, would be completely at odds with one of stand-up’s many unwritten rules; a new tour - in this case, Bridges’ ‘The Overdue Catch-Up’ tour - is almost always about unveiling brand new work. New stories, new jokes, and a bunch of fresh takes. A new tour is the comedy equivalent of a musician or band releasing a brand new album.

 I missed the Glaswegian funny man the last time he performed in Wellington in 2017, but his reputation clearly proceeds him in this part of the world, because he all but sold out the MFC (the kitset-like wooden interior of the venue is “like a giant Ikea” according to Bridges), with a large portion of the capital’s (and beyond) ex-pat Scottish community firmly in tow.

In fact, Bridges must have wondered what all the fuss was about when he arrived on stage, just after a chorus of boos rang out around the venue – on account of some jobsworth “security steward” having asked a group of patrons to remove the large Saltire they’d hung from the front row of the theatre’s second tier.

It turns out “Owen fae Dunfermline” was responsible for that little piece of mischievous patriotism, and the Saltire soon reappeared, exactly where it shouldn’t. Bridges quickly spotted it and immediately had a little fun with Owen during the first segment of his set.

Bridges loves a bit of banter with his audience, and for the most part that’s one of the best things about his comedy. The connection, the humanity, the cheeky-chappy persona, and the sense that he’s really just an ordinary guy getting paid to share his close observations about everyday life. But it doesn’t always work out, and it could be that on this particular night, Bridges overestimated the intelligence of those he was about to banter with.

It was a feature of the night, and not necessarily in a good way. Pass marks and bouquets for Owen, and a “57-year-old” man who challenged Bridges’ assertion that teenagers drink less these days, but a firm brickbat to the clearly drunk English woman who kept wanting to involve herself. “You’re a cunt” she yelled, to the appreciation of exactly nobody, before Bridges reminded her - and perhaps himself, through gritted teeth - that he was “a cunt she was paying money to see”.

And a brickbat to the guy wearing “the Cowboys” tee who refused to engage, and perhaps an only slightly less violent gong for Bridges’ selected “local” translator in the front row, who tried to engage but evidently had issues speaking the language coherently.

Sometimes audience engagement works out just fine and adds to the flavour of the gig, but on this occasion it only seemed to leave Bridges scratching his head and regretting it. At one or two moments, particularly near the end, Bridges had to essentially beg rogue wannabe participants to quieten down just so he could get to the end of his story.

Other than those unforeseen hiccups, Bridges was in pretty good form. He reminded us that so much has happened in the six years since he was last in Wellington, with warzones in Europe and the Middle East, with Covid, and the small matter of him getting married and becoming a father during that period.

Covid and its fall-out is ripe subject matter at present naturally, and Bridges returned to it a few times during the course of a set which also had gags around bullying, cancel culture, insomnia, social media, technology and the internet, yet one of the biggest cheers - but not so much for yours truly - was reserved for a tale about hemorrhoids which crossed over nicely with an amusing observation about Instagram gym junkies.

Now in his mid-30s, although he seems to have been around a lot longer, Bridges also indulged in morsels of obligatory self-deprecation, having a laugh at the boy and young man he was, while also having a wee crack at his older present day self.

He managed around 80 minutes and was good value for most of it, all unwanted interruptions aside. All of his gags were new to me, and I suspect many of these stories will only get better, and probably even added to, as the tour continues.

The opener/support slot was Londoner Carl Donnelly. Not Carl Connelly, as the promo flyers suggested. Imagine getting a career break to perform 12,000 miles from home as the support for a popular headline star and the lazy marketing people only go and get your name wrong?

Donnelly did a relatable and mostly funny 20-minute set covering off his Irish heritage, his physical decline into middle age, and turned his (and his partner’s) struggles with IVF into a series of quips about wanking. He looks like one to keep an eye on.

Gig Review: Eddie Izzard - Wunderbar - Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, 26 February 2019

It didn’t really matter that I’d already seen Eddie Izzard live on stage twice before. It didn’t even matter that this was a pesky midweek affair. And it certainly didn’t matter that I’d heard some of the same material before, give or take a variation or two. I had high expectations, and Eddie Izzard’s 'Wunderbar' performance at Wellington’s packed Michael Fowler Centre on Tuesday night was everything I anticipated it would be.

Izzard doesn’t really do jokes. He’s from the stream-of-consciousness-rambling school of stand-up comedy. Where the timing and delivery is way more important than the subject matter itself. A comedian who specialises in the art of taking the audience off on wild tangents before eventually returning full circle to deliver a punchline. And for the most part, that works just fine. 

The only danger is that a lot of his material is so absurd, and delivered at such a frenetic pace, you need to be sufficiently on form and sharp yourself to ensure the really good stuff doesn’t get lost in the wash. And while his multilingualism is a definite asset and a major plus at times, his frequent transitioning between English, French, and German, was, on this occasion, perhaps a little too random, and I found myself struggling to keep up. 

We got all of the regular Izzard touchstones: an hilarious reframing of history, religion and god, ice cream, dogs, superheroes, and naturally, politics - with references to Brexit, Trump, and parallels drawn between the rise of 1930s-style fascism and today’s current political climate. All a rich source of mirth and humour. Sort of … the last part, not so much. 

He talked a little bit about his life as a child, about being gender fluid, about the recent loss of his father, about his ongoing political ambitions, and about his incredible marathon-running feats: “it’s ninety percent mental and the other ten percent is in your head” …

Admittedly, I failed to fully grasp his post-encore closing salvo, his “theory of the universe”, but that hardly mattered. It was me, Eddie, not you. 

It was a fun night, and if Izzard ever does fulfil those political goals, I’m quite sure he’s going to need every last bit of that manic sense of humour just to survive. Just as I’m sure he’ll be a great success, and the rare breath of fresh air that UK politics - indeed, global politics - needs right now. 

Gig Review: The Catherine Tate Show Live, Opera House, Wellington, 30 November 2018

As the title would suggest, Catherine Tate’s two-hour-plus performance at a sold out Wellington Opera House last Friday night wasn’t so much a stand-up routine, more a live excursion into the various characters and skits that have made her TV show such popular viewing over the past decade and a half. 

Which made perfect sense because the key to Tate’s humour is not the freshness of her act, but rather the familiarity of it, and the ability of her audience to recognise and identify with the disfunction - or outright ridiculousness - of those characters.

From Bernie the horny and incompetent Irish nurse, who opened proceedings, right on through to a prolonged celebration of everyone’s favourite foul-mouthed gran, Nan Taylor, who closed the show, we got a procession of characters and the full range of Tate’s comedic talents. Aided by a cast of three additional performers who played the supporting, more peripheral, roles throughout. 

There were several skits involving Kate, the irritating office worker (“go on, have a guess, it’ll be fun”) before we got the payoff the third time around, but sadly just one each for a couple of my own favourites, Derek (“gay dear? ... me dear? ... how very dare you”), and snotty schoolgirl Lauren (“am I bovvered”). 

There was even a brief pre-recorded (screen/interlude) cameo for Billy Connolly, playing the role of St Peter at the pearly gates. And naturally the night wasn’t going to pass by without a few - relatively brief - reliably non-PC, audience participation moments. 

The extended Nan Taylor sequence at the end included a rendition of the variety show classic ‘Enjoy Yourself (it’s later than you think)’ in a forlorn attempt to get the audience to sing along - something that might work well in the safe environs of an old blighty pub, but something that is much more difficult to achieve with a rather more reserved, sober, and seated antipodean audience. 

There were a few moments - particularly during that final sketch - when Tate struggled to remain fully in character, but none of it really mattered, for the most part she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, and I think it’s fair to say that all in attendance left the venue feeling “well happy” (as Lauren might say) with what they’d witnessed from the class act that is Catherine Tate.

Gig Review: Eddie Izzard - Force Majeure - at Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, 15 February 2015

A “Force Majeure” is often used as a get-out clause in building or construction contracts. It’s considered something like an “act of God”, or something representative of an irresistible or “superior” force. I’m not really sure what it means in layman’s terms but it nonetheless seems like an appropriate handle for a self-proclaimed “action transvestite” to travel the world with. It all makes perfect sense, darling.

It was the Force Majeure tour that brought heel-wearing English comedian Eddie Izzard to Wellington for the fourth time last weekend. I was lucky enough to have caught his act on one other occasion, at the State Opera House, way back in 2003. His other visits to the capital came in 2000, as part of the Laugh! Festival, and more recently in 2011, when his Stripped tour brought him to the St James Theatre. I was at the MFC last Sunday night, alongside a near full house, which followed a sold out Saturday night show at the same venue.

 

I worried pre-gig that I'd watched too much Eddie Izzard concert footage over the years and I'd be a little too familiar with some of his material. That turned out to be an unfounded fear - there was a crossover of some themes, and one or two specific topics (cake, ice cream), but this was mostly all new material.

Knowing what to expect from Izzard may actually be an advantage - any newbie might be inclined to wonder if he'll ever get to the point or reveal the punchline, but Izzard's clever and seemingly random stream of consciousness rambling frequently offers up some of his best work. Sunday night was no exception.

Historical figures - ranging from the diverse old-timer likes of Genghis Khan and Charles 1 to relatively contemporary figures like Hitler and Maggie Thatcher - provided Izzard with plenty of quality material, each crossing over (to one extent or another) into the twin themes of politics and religion. And when it comes to comedy, subject matter seldom comes much richer than that.

There were elements of physical comedy in Izzard's act but mostly it was all about intelligent observational humour. There were short segments in French and German, reminders that Izzard is multilingual, and that he’s performed entire shows in those languages in the past.

I wasn’t surprised to hear Izzard confirm his intention to enter politics, with the race for the 2020 London mayoralty likely to present him with his initial fresh challenge in that sphere. He’s achieved just about everything there is to achieve as a performance artist, not only as a stand-up, but also through a wide range of television and film roles. His energy and thirst to “make a difference” (man) apparently knows no bounds.

Anybody who - as a complete novice - can run 43 marathons in 51 days (as Izzard did a few years back) to raise money for Comic Relief, demonstrates a level of determination most of us can only dream about. You might even conclude he’s driven by some kind of superior force …

So it was a pretty sweet couple of hours in Izzard’s company on Sunday night, even with the odd fluffed line and one or two relatively flat moments, knowing that at some point in the near future he’ll just as likely be lost to the stage forever.

Gig Review: Jimeoin – What?! – at the Wellington Opera House, Wellington, May 19 2013

Stand up comedy might just about be the toughest gig in all of show business. If not the toughest, then certainly the most unforgiving. Up there on stage in front of hundreds of people expecting to be entertained by little more than what comes out of your mouth. No chance of a last minute edit before it goes “live”, and no chance to run and hide should things go a little awry.

But the experienced Melbourne-based Irish comedian Jimeoin has seen it all before, and he turned up at the Wellington Opera House last Sunday with his best game face on, delivering an hour-long set that, due to its brevity, only left many of those in attendance desperately wanting more.

I get that it was a comedy festival gig, which are by their very nature notoriously short, but I had expected a little more. Having seen Eddie Izzard captivate a similarly sized audience for a much longer spell at the same venue a few years back, I had hoped that Jimeoin’s set might stretch to around 90 minutes, or at the very least include an encore. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

 

 

Jimeoin is an engaging character with loads of charisma, but perhaps his best asset is that “lived in” face. So much of his humour is supplemented by a look, a sly glance, a knowing grin, a frown, or that moment where he tilts his head back slightly and sniggers, as though the joke is somehow on the audience itself.

There’s physical comedy (the gig kicks off with our man arriving on stage dancing to some retro-chic disco, which is a bit like watching your boss at the annual Christmas party), loads of observational humour about everyday little things, jokes about (not telling) jokes, a lot of self deprecation, with morsels of localised content thrown in every so often – the now almost obligatory mention of Lord Of The Rings is becoming a little tiresome, truth be told (it reeks of someone straining for local material and opting for the most obvious reference point).

The undoubted highlight was the section of the show near the end where Jimeoin dons the guitar and offers some light musical relief. Not so much a set of “songs”, rather, snippets of half-formed songs, or more accurately, a series of short quips about songs. There’s some audience participation at this point, and there’s no question that by the conclusion Jimeoin has offered more than enough to win the audience over.

So while it was some way short of the best comedy show I’ve seen, and certainly one of the shortest (he could have perhaps done with a local up-and-comer warming us up for 15 minutes or so), there is no question that Jimeoin is a very funny guy, and yep, I’ll definitely look for another chance to see him again.