@ Stand Comedy Club, Edinburgh, on Thu 18 Feb 2016
Whipped into shape by the unscheduled, but very able host, Susan Morrison, the audience for this mid-February edition of the Stand’s “weekend starts here” show is bubbling along nicely as the first of four acts takes to the stage.
Jim Park is the most unconventional of the evening’s performers, characterised by a strangulated delivery and uptight stage presence. Clipboard in hand, he makes to conduct an audience survey, but it’s soon clear this is just a platform for a series of non-sequiturs and flights of fancy. “Right. Good.” employed as a nervous ba-dum tish, whether the crowd have got the joke or not, is something of a catchphrase/tick of his. Frequently funny, if a little haphazard in direction, he’s an acquired taste as an opening act.
Alison Spittle is much more conventionally marketable. Material about cute kids on telly making her ovaries twitch could be excruciating, but it’s delivered with an exuberance and a smile in the voice that’s an automatic winner. She banters charmingly with Australians in the audience over a misheard word, and warmth radiates throughout the room. Her comedy is as bright as her website. Afterwards, Morrison references the Irish woman’s youthfulness, but she’s more than slick enough that no qualifier on account of age is necessary.
There’s little to fault with Steven Dick in terms of stagecraft. He claims to be returning to performance after a break for child-rearing, but there’s no sign of rustiness. But his forte is magic. Sandwiched here between straight stand-ups, it’s clear he’s more of a magician with humour, than a comedian who does magic. There’s nothing wrong with the way he materialises a tenner from inside a kiwi, or transports cards across stage from husband to wife. Tonight’s just not the best setting.
After a final interval, Geordie Carl Hutchinson arrives on stage. His opening observational material is a little ho-hum, but he soon hits his stride. He plays on cross-border camaraderie with tales of schlepping up and down the A1 in company with a few of Megabus’s rummer patrons, and his confessional about grading his underwear is quirky, but has the males in the audience nodding in recognition. Operating with a cool confidence, he justifies his place as headliner. It’s been a good night.