I have been a fan of Milton Jones since first hearing him on BBC7 (or Radio 4 Extra as its now known) way back in 2004. I stumbled upon him when I first had a Freeview box; and that was one of the reasons i have continued to listen to Radio 4 Extra and Radio 4. His Radio programmes The Very World of, and Another Case of (Milton Jones) have been purely brilliant with every series. Not one episode of these shows has disappointed and neither has he whenever i've seen him on TV. I knew i was in for a treat to finally see him for real. The only drawback was of a personal nature, in that I hadn't slept very well for days beforehand; not that it was anything to do with this event...anyway on with the review.
I arrived at the venue at 7-15 to be met by my friend Chris. The tickets were held at the box office, we picked them up and in we went.
The show started at 7-35, just five minutes after it was due, which is pretty good going for any comedy show.
The MC, Matt Reed came on to rapturous applause. It was warranted as he turned out to be a great worker of the (sold out) crowd. He warmed the crowd up to within an inch of its life before introducing Ian Stone, the first act of the evening;
He's a very good comedian with a great line in Jewish humour. When i say Jewish humour I don't mean he was all Jackie Mason impersonations and Matriarchal mothers. Actually only about 10% of his material was what you could call Jewish, the other 90% was observational; He told us a little about himself, talked to the audience, made them aware that he didn't mind being heckled but as it turned out there was no heckling and he carried on through his set. Some of his routines were simply things he'd noticed, or like the majority of us, found funny about the world in general. There was also a brief foray into the world at large i.e. our position in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Al-qaeda. None of that material was shocking in the least, and i don't think anyone in the audience found anything remotely offensive about that.
There was a 20 minute interval, then Matt Reed came back for a few minutes before introducing the 2nd act of the evening;
Joel Dommett is a young comedian (not that I'm comparing ages with Ian Stone you understand) with the gift of the gab. Although his set was largely enjoyed by the audience, for me I felt there was something lacking in his attempts to fully win over the crowd. I found his humour just a little short of funny. Having said that, the story he relayed about nearly crashing his bicycle into an opened car door was probably the highlight of his set. I suppose there is something inherently funny about slowing right down to stand still and falling sideways into the lap of the person driving the car, but one joke a great routine does not make.
At the end of his set there was a 2nd interval followed by the headlining brilliance of Milton Jones; Most people will know Milton Jones from his (all too brief) appearances on Mock The Week. Those that have a slightly wider knowledge of him may well have seen him on Live At The Apollo (most recently 2 weeks ago), wearing what can only be described as LOUD shirts.
Swindon's very own Frequency magazine called him the 'King of the surreal one-liners'. While I agree with that, I also believe that not all of his material relies on that surrealist bent; For instance, the following joke; "I was on a bus, sitting next to an old man. He asked if we should be in Afghanistan? and i said i don't know i only paid to Ealing Broadway!"
My personal highlight was his "I was walking down the street when i saw a dead baby ghost...turns out it was a handkerchief". After 45 minutes of fantastic one-liners and some brilliant audience banter it was the end of the show...or was it? Well, actually it was!
No comments:
Post a Comment