PBH at 60 (part two)

What a difference a day makes, as the old song goes. And never more appropriately, as the second night of the Edinburgh leg of Peter Buckley Hill’s 60^th birthday celebrations could not have been more different from the first if it had tried. In one way this was a good thing, as there was certainly a larger audience making the room look rather less threadbare. But unfortunately it was not all good news.

PBH started the night off again with a mix of banter and comedy songs, a much longer set than the previous night and this, I suspect, had a lot to do with the gentleman sitting front and centre who unfortunately seemed unfamiliar with the concept of a comedy show and spent the entire performance trying to join in. The result was that every time PBH had started to build momentum and get the mood of the room rising, a wholly inappropriate interruption at exactly the wrong moment would ruin whatever payoff he was building to, and he would have to start all over again.

The problem, of course, is that when you are trying to run a friendly gig in a small room, a harsh put-down could have killed the mood altogether, and the result was that he just had to try to work around the problem, throwing out an admonition to “heckle in the gaps” and leaving it at that.

Matters were not improved by the appearance of David Heffron. An experienced club circuit comedian, I can only imagine he had chosen the night to try out some new material, because he looked hesitant and unsure of himself from the very beginning. Whatever the reason, his set simply didn’t work, and he was obviously aware of this himself and began casting around for something that would bring the laughs, causing his performance to become jumpy and slightly incoherent. A big closing laugh, however, just about managed to rescue things for him.

Being fair to the two comics who followed, both were members of the Edinburgh University sketch comedy team Comedy and That, and as such I assume neither have any particular club experience. Mike Walsh, first up, was a young Irishman who was clearly heavily influenced by Dylan Moran, to the extent that he had appropriated many of his mannerisms, right down to the red wine glass that he splashed around in his hand throughout his performance. This is not necessarily a bad thing, most comedians start out aping the people who inspired them, and Walsh had some good moments, albeit using the old comedy standby of comparing Irish and British culture, and he showed enough promise that, once he begins to develop into a style of his own, I imagine he may do well.

Ben Kerth, who followed, was equally promising. Again, a lack of stage experience showed, but he started out strongly, and for the first half of his act, at least, brought the audience fully to life, something that had been lacking up until that point. His material listing different ways his rather hirsute appearance had been described was very good, (particularly “the fat girl from the Magic Numbers,) and although he began to fade towards the end of his set, he gave easily the best performance of the first half of the night.

Now I’m going to start my description of Mickey Anderson with a caveat. In preparing to write this review I watched a couple of clips of him in action on YouTube, and in both he was very good. But a comedian needs to know what is going to work for him, and in neither clip was he performing the bizarre choice of material he presented us with on Saturday night. Because for some unfathomable reason, perhaps it was supposed to be post-modern irony but if so I didn’t get it, after a good opening minute or two, he launched into a set of material about how old he was getting. And it wasn’t that the material was bad, it might very well have worked if the audience hadn’t had their eyes open and were thus fully aware that he appeared to have barely passed the age of puberty. He even commented himself at one point that he was possibly the youngest person in the room, which should probably have given him a clue that this material quite simply was never going to work. I’d be interested in seeing him again, performing a different set, because he did look promising, but I’d have to advise him to dump this particular set of material in the nearest wastebin as soon as humanly possible, and don’t revisit it for at least another twenty years.

As for Peter Aitchison, given the feel of the room at this point, an attempt at topical political comedy was probably not the best idea. Aitchison spent the majority of his set working his way through the news of the day making witty remarks about each story, but to be honest what was really needed at this point was tried and tested material. An attempt to liven things up by creating a lonely-hearts ad for himself using audience suggestions worked slightly better and gave him a decent ending to his set, and managed to give the first half of the night a reasonable round-off.

The second half kicked off with Gordon Brunton, and I can’t help wishing he had been introduced a lot earlier. I think the reason he was kept to this point was from the experience of the previous night and realising that there might be a need for someone with the ability to fill. But the fact is that from the moment he took to the stage he breathed energy into the whole night. Clearly a seasoned and experienced performer, he worked the audience superbly well and brought the room fully to life. Being a cohort of PBH from way back, he told stories of the early days of the Free Fringe which gave his set a topical feel, and despite performing the longest set of the evening, you felt he could have kept going all night if he had been asked to.

Graham Thomas closed the night, having rushed straight down from performing at The Stand, and, building on the good start, kept the momentum going with a motormouth performance. Like his predecessor he got in among the audience and managed to connect with a set that felt less like a well rehearsed monologue and more like an over-excitable mate whose mouth was running away with him.

So overall, fifteen acts, or sixteen including the man himself, performing over two night free of charge was nothing to be sneezed at, and the good moments certainly outweighed those less so. And with a free CD on the way out, how could you possibly complain. PBH has been organising nights like these for long enough now to know that there are always going to be ups and downs in any hastily thrown together show, and the main thing is that as long as everyone has fun then you can call it a success, and that was certainly the case here.

And so it only remains to say Happy Birthday Sir, I hope it’s a good one for you certainly deserve it. And here’s to many more years of bringing comedy to the people, and keeping it real.

PBH at 60 (part one)

Peter Buckley Hill is a name that would be recognised by few outside of the world of stand-up, and by almost everyone within it. A little over a decade ago, PBH recognised that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival had lost its way. What had started out as a way for smaller companies without funds or state backing to become part of the Edinburgh experience, had now become as much a commercial venture as the main festival itself. Consequently the ticket prices were rising, the venue charges were rising, and the situation was becoming that only those who had already established themselves could afford to play.

So he had the idea of putting on a show for free. The first year he made a huge loss, but establishing the precedent, he was able from there to persuade more and more people to give him a performing space, mostly events rooms in pubs around the city, free of charge in return for increased bar sales. These venues he then lets for free to performers, on the condition that they in turn charge no ticket price, but take only what is given to them in an open collection at the end of the performance. And so, the Free Fringe was born, and the list of performers who have benefitted from it is endless.

On Monday March 3rd, PBH turns 60, and having another mad idea he decided to put on a series of six free shows, four in London, two in Edinburgh, featuring a total of 60 comedians with himself as MC, all giving their time for free in aid of the Free Fringe running costs. This was the first of the Edinburgh shows, and the fourth overall.

It’s a shame, then, that as so often happens in the comedy business, those who are a regular part of it forget that those outside have no idea what is going on. The fact that a free show in the centre of a major city on a Friday night could be so sparsely attended can only be down to the lack of publicity the event received in advance. But take nothing away from PBH, there may not have been a huge attendance, but those who did turn up got a great little show.

PBH himself makes a warm and welcoming host. With a slightly ramshackle approach to performing, he genuinely appears as if he is making it all up on the spot, and probably half the time he is. In fact his performance starts even before he takes the stage, as he wanders around the room talking to folk as if they are old friends, even if he’s never met them before.

Keara Murphy started off the night. With a set based mostly around her middle-class Glasgow upbringing and her Irish mother who refuses to believe anything good can come from anywhere but Ireland, it was a good opening. Murphy is clearly experienced and looked comfortable on the stage, letting her set build by itself rather than trying to force laughs from the small audience.

Barry McDonald was next up, wandering on stage with a gag about his black stripy shirt making him look like a human bar-code. It was good to get an early laugh in, because for the opening of his set he looked hesitant and less relaxed, but he began to win the audience over about half way through. Clearly less experienced, he nonetheless had some good lines and by the time he finished he had made a good account of himself.

It was my second time of seeing Elaine Malcolmson, and she is an act I continue to be impressed by. Very quietly spoken, her comedy is low key, her act stylised and her lines clearly well rehearsed. But last night something happened about half way through. Distracted from her train of thought she launched into an obviously impromptu anecdote about a bomb scare in Katowice Airport which was superbly funny and showed a side to her personality I hadn’t seen on the last occasion, and only went to confirm my impression that she is one to watch for in the future.

Viv Gee, on the other hand, didn’t really look comfortable at all, and never seemed to get the mood of the audience. An almost interminable routine about subliminal suggestions never seemed to go anywhere and probably needed a bigger and drunker audience to really work. Despite a few good lines, she didn’t seem able to get into her stride at all, and to be fair it looked like she was well aware of the fact and couldn’t wait to get to the end.

The last act of the first half was then slightly odd. Ruby Summers is not a comedian, but a blues singer. Which would have been fine, if some warning had been given that this was what she was, but instead the audience was expecting more comedy and was thus left slightly confused as she sang a couple of numbers in a spangly red Jessica Rabbit dress which kept threatening to slip down and expose her voluminous bosom, against a pre-recorded backing tape on which the volume was turned up so high it frequently drowned out her voice. Being fair, she’s a decent enough singer, but the act just seemed slightly out of place on the night.

The second half began with Jeff O’Boyle, a personable Ulsterman who performed a self-deprecating act mostly based around relationships and internet dating. He has some good lines despite the rather well-worn subject matter, and being another relative newcomer, he might be one to keep an eye on if he can develop his material a bit more and step out of the comfort zone.

With one of the remaining four scheduled acts having already apparently dropped out, and two more not having shown up yet, Neil McFarlane was now placed in the position of having to fill wildly rather than performing the ten minute set that had been the standard up until this point. Having already been outed as coming from the posh part of Glasgow, the existence of which was hitherto unsuspected, he has a confident and unassuming laid-back approach which takes a little while to warm to. But while the early part of his set was a little bland, he got into his stride with material about working in the BBC complaints department, and managed to pull things around so that by the end of his set he had the audience well on his side.

With another act failing to turn up, Keir McAllister turned out to be the final performer of the night. Having now seen him perform three times in less than two months, it’s a little difficult to know what there is new to say about him. But the first few minutes consisted of material I hadn’t heard before, and he worked the room well, being the only performer of the night to get down off the platform stage and get in and amongst the audience.

So overall it was an entertaining night, and I’ll be heading back for the second round in a few scant hours after I finish writing this. I can only hope that a larger audience can be rounded up, because nice though it is to sometimes feel like one of the “in-the-know crowd,” nights like this deserve something more.