image: Pigeon Hole Comedy
“It’s important to realise she’s still having fun” Lou Sanders assures us as she sings along to ‘Fishing for Compliments’, one of her sound bytes for this evening. Sander is flouncing a fishing rod made from a stick with compliments on strings around the head of a girl in the audience. We are definitely having fun. Lou was the big name on the bill at Brudenell Social Club’s monthly Pigeon Hole Comedy Night on Monday. It was ad-hoc and a bit of a whirlwind, but her finale act – inviting an audience member to join her on stage and tip a bag of Tate and Lyle sugar over her as she writhed around on a chair to Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ – got the biggest applause of the night.
Host Kiri Pritchard-McClean was a delight, warming up an already cheery audience and befriending a few of them with her improvised compère skills. She handed over to first act of the night, Robin Parmiter, and suddenly we weren’t having fun anymore. Parmiter started off relatively well, easing us in with some tales of his personal life, his genitals, a short explanation of the way his mind works, a little audience participation opportunity in the form of a dance routine, and a lot of swearing. Then, the room fell into a deafening silence: Parmiter had dropped a joke about the holocaust. The audience were aghast. There is a fine line to this sort of subject matter, but it was especially out of place coming as it did on the day the country paused to pay two minutes of silent respect to its dead.
Fortunately, Edy Hurst was up next and the residual atmosphere retreated. The audience was overwhelmed by his fast paced allegorical tale of saving the common earthworm, the effects of hallucinogens and dealing with its aftermath. It was hard to fathom whether we were in the realm of fiction or reality but that is why it was so funny; Hurst does not fall into the trap of Peter Kay comedy styling. He’s something of a surrealist. Chatting afterwards, he revealed he’s relatively new to stand up, something his on stage presence doesn’t give away. The audience, eyebrows raised and mouths hanging open, waited on his every word.
Amy Gledhill had us laughing from the moment she stepped up to the microphone, relaying to us a few of the tips she’s been given on stand up comedy. Making an entrance was top of her list, and as she strode across the stage handing out party poppers to be let off on her command whilst singing her own walk on music, she didn’t have to try too hard to keep the laughter going. She made light of the sexism and misogyny with party horns and proved she’s no stranger to stand up by drawing on this for her funniest material.
Brudenell Social Club hosts Pigeon Hole every month, definitely look out for the next one!
Entry £2.00 OTD.
Emma Bakel