Milk the Laughs made their spring debut with a bumper crop of comedy from some familiar faces and some nice shiny new ones.
Tealights alumni were dotted amongst a line up that boasted Daniel Simonsen and Alfie Brown, two comedians who are rapidly tearing their way through the national comedy scene.
Jack Barry, our first ex-Tealight, took charge of coaxing the audience into a false sense of security, before unleashing the first act of the evening, in the form of whiney Canadian – no, not Justin Bieber – Mae Martin. After self-deprecating descriptions of her social in capabilities during formative years, and how she uncannily resembles a sweet corn, Martin topped her set off with a catchy tune about how Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her sixth grade Math teacher inadvertently made her gay.
The next segment was comprised of our second ex-Tealight Patrick Turpin, more lovely known as Burger Nips, and Alfie Brown. Turpin combined a clear passion for Photoshop, or in this recession MS Paint, with some very well executed wise cracks. Fast-paced wordplay and a touching insight into his struggles as an overweight teen who coordinated outfits with his dad, Turpin’s short but sweet set suggests a promising future in comedy, or if that falls through, anything concerning power point presentations.
Alfie Brown brought his jaded perception of society to the stage next, with tirades about how just because we’ve only had bad dictators, doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a good one. He finished his set with an eye-opening linguistic analysis of Rihanna’s ‘Rude Boy’, pushing the boundaries as to what we can get away with through suggestive language – or not.
In our final section of the evening, we tasted the local crop with Yorkshire’s own Pete Starr, and an export of fine Norwegian comedy from Edinburgh 2012 Best Newcomer Daniel Simonsen.
Starr took the audience into familiar territory, adapting our beloved Otley Run into his very own ‘Drug Golf’ (you pretty much just replace the drinks with drugs and the pubs with the bus stops outside ‘em), before Simonsen took us on a journey through his caustic view of everything from hip hop to his vegetarian housemates.
Simonsen, after a short while, did admit to having exhausted all the material he had prepared. He then confessed that this was something he and Brown had been challenging themselves to do, in an attempt to generate more material, under greater pressure. Nonetheless, he maintained he crowd on his improvisations alone, imitating a friend who likes to ‘ROFLWEW’ (roll on the floor laughing whilst eating waffles), before distinguishing between the over-politeness of Norwegian audiences, who clap during every awkward pause, to us Brits, who just let the comedian die.
Thankfully neither Simonsen, nor any of the rest of the bill lived up to this expectation, all providing more than enough laughs to save them from death.
Lily Dessau