GDMEDY listings
COMEDY LISTINGS continued
TUESDAY 9
Glasgow
Haywire! BBC Scotland. Queen Margaret Drive. 338 3163. 7.10pm. Free. but booking essential. Recording of new sketch shenanigans. Phil Nichol! will contribute a song or two. so it's worth going tust for that. Hard to trust a show that requires an exclamation mark. however.
Edinburgh
Brian Hennigan's House Of Fun The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. 8pm. £1 to play. free to watch. Team up (four to eight players) to play big boardgames with host Brian Hennigan. Calling one game ‘Name That Tuna' suggests a superior standard of wit and invention.
WEDNESDAY 10
Edinburgh
World Of Comedy Quiz Show The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. 9pm. £1 to play. free to spectators. Bill Dewar hosts a hilarious night of comedy trivia. Not to be confused with a trivial night of comedy hysteria. Play to win great prizes and a roll-overjackpot. A ton to you. me old sort.
THURSDAY 11
Glasgow
Adam Bloom Cottier Theatre. Hyndland Street. 357 3868. Ticket Link. see page 60. 8pm. £8 (£6). High intensity stuff from a comic approaching the peak of his game. Rob Rouse supports. See preview. pa 'e ()4. Cheshire Cat Comedy C ub Waxy's. 20 Candleriggs. 552 8717. l().3()pm. Free. Raymond Mearns welcomes Gerry Grant arid some other guests who have yet to confirm.
Cosy Comedy Cafe The State Bar. 148 Holland Street. 332 2159. Doors 8.30pm. £4 (£3). Billy Bonkers with the superb Lee Ness. Frank Quinn attd open spots.
Edinburgh
Craig Charles Heriot-Watt University. Riccarton. 451 5333. 9pm. £9.5()—£12.5(). Cotttedy's renaissance man in stand-up action.
Christie's Comedy Cellar W.J. Christie's. 228 3765. 9pm. £4 (£3). Viv Gee proves that with Comedy. it's all about rhytning. attd Dougie Dunlop and Madame Moo Moo provide alliterative support.
The Stand 5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 8pm. £4 (£3). Joon Broon spits bile. Richard Allen headlines. John Gordon pitches up. and Weatherall & Graham get to stay tip with the grown- ups.
FRIDAY 12
Edinburgh
The Stand 5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 8pm. £4 (£3). Parrot. very tnuch alive. headlines. Mark Bratchpiece and Sandy Nelson pave the comedy way. Reg Anderson's Comedy Explosion Tron Ceilidh House. Hunter Square. 226 0931. Doors 8pm. £4 (£3). Sketchy character stuff with Hurdum Durdum. Joe Heenan stands up and is counted alongside Dave Williams and Kevin Spence.
SATURDAY 13 Glasgow Cosy Comedy Cafe The State Bar. 148 Holland Street. 332 2159. Doors 8.30pm. £4 (£3). Billy Bonkers with the back again Lee Ness. Dave Williams and all the way from his home itt Edinburgh. Colin Ramone. The Joke Box Mister P's Bar/Diner. 42 Wellmeadow Street. Paisley. 561 71 17. 10.30pm. Free. Gordon Brunton hits the comedy headlines. Craig Crookston and John Gordon ably support.
Edinburgh Adam Bloom Gilded Balloon. 233 Cowgate. 226 2151. High intensity stuff front a comic approaching the peak of his game. Rob Rouse supports. See greview. page 64.
he Stand 5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 8pm. £6 (£4). Parrot's in the house. Mark Bratchpiece and Sandy Nelson make the trip frotn Paisley. Jane Mackay hosts.
SUNDAY 14
Glasgow
The Comic Club Blackfriars Underground. 36 Bell Street. 552 5924. Lee Ness and Frank Quinn support James Donlan.
Edinburgh
Whose Lunch Is It Anyway? The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. lptn. Free. ltnprov in the afternoon frotn residents Jack Weatherall and Paul Graham.
Ccmedy Off The Cuff W.J. Christie's. 228 3765. 9pm. £4 (£3). Valentine love special with the 1m roverts. Pint-Sized Come y The Stand.
5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 7.30pm. £2.50 (£2). Another magnificent seven acts.
MONDAY 15 Glasgow Laugh Out Loud L‘Attache. 27 Waterloo Street. 221 3210. 8.45pm. £2.50 (£2). Brand new comedy club. with Joe Heenan headlining.
Susanne Fraser under the hammer at Christie's
84 TNE LIST 4—18 Feb 1999
COMEDY PREVIEW Adam Bloom
Glasgow, Cottier Theatre, Thu 11 Feb; Edinburgh, Gilded Balloon, Sat 13 Feb.
*5
Bloom at the top
'It only cost me half a crown.’ This previously unpublished sentence may seem perfectly innocuous, but in the life and career of Adam Bloom these are seven words that shook his world, because they constitute the punchline to the first gag he ever told. The rest of the joke, by the comic's own admission, is nothing to write home about, but for a bored ten-year- old on family holiday in Germany, it represented a defining moment. ‘I knew then that l was going to be comedian. I’d made my mum and aunt laugh - grown ups — by being clever, not by saying pooh or bottom. The irony is that I say pooh and bottom in my act now, constantly.‘
Precocious this self-awareness may have been, but it set a pattern for Bloom's approach to comedy, and you’d be hard put to find an act on the circuit who so thoroughly analyses their own appeal.
’Some comics 90 on stage and say this is my little world that you don't understand but I'll let you in for a while, and others get up there and pretend their totally ordinary,’ he says. ‘I don't really fall into either camp. People can relate to what I'm saying in terms of their own lives, but I do it all in such a mad way that I get some distance between me and the
audience.’
For someone whose star has been in pretty continuous ascendancy through five years worth of gigging - even being overlooked by the Perrier panel at the 98 Fringe didn't hold him back, he simply scooped the Polygram people's choice award instead - Bloom has a high regard for the comedic potential of ennui: 'Rich people don't need to be funny. If you're sitting on a yacht, sipping champagne, who needs jokes? But if you're on a park bench in the rain when you're fifteen, passing a bottle of cider around with your mates, one of you has got to make the others laugh because otherwise it’s so fucking dull.’ (Rob Fraser)
l Adam p/ays at the Cott/er, Glasgow, Thu 7 I Feb and at Edinburgh ’5 Gilded Bal/oon on Sat 73 Feb. Rob Rouse 15 support for both gigs.
Edinburgh
Red Raw The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 7.30pm. £1. Liane lillis gives the comically inexperienced a chance to take their first faltering steps along the road of humour. ()ccasiottally. more established acts turn up too.
TUESDAY 16
Glasgow Haywire! BBC Scotland. Queen Margaret Drive. See Tue 9 for details.
Edinburgh
Ennio Marchetto Queen's Hall. Clerk Street. 667 7776. 8pm. £3--£1()_ What this guy can't do with paper. . .
Brian I-lennigan's House Of Fun The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. 8pm. £1 to play. free to watch. See Tue 9.
WEDNESDAY 17
Edinburgh
World Of Comedy Quiz Show The Stand. 5 York Place. 558 7272. 9pm. £1 to play. free to spectators. Bill Dewar hosts a ltilarious night ofcomedy trivia. Play to win great prizes and a roll-overjackpot.
THURSDAY 18
Glasgow
Ennio Marchetto Cottier Theatre.
93 Hyndland Street. 357 3868.
also Ticket Link. see page 60. 8pm. £10 (£8). The Living Cartoon hits Glasgow.
Cheshire Cat Comedy Club Waxy‘s. 2(1Candleriggs. 552 8717. 10.30pm. Free. No details of acts at time of going to press. but hey. it‘s gratis. so what‘ve you got lose‘.’
Cosy Comedy Cafe The State Bar. 148 Holland Street. 332 2159. Doors 8.30pm. £4 (£3). Billy Bonkers invites
Sandy Nelson and Dave Williams to
flex their chuckle muscles. Open spot. l()().
Edinburgh
Christie's Comedy Cellar W.J. Christie's. 228 3765. 9pm. £4 (£3). Michael Redmond is your as seen on TV headliner.
The Stand 5 York Place. 558 7272. Doors 8pm. £4 (£3). Susan Morrison is one side of the eternal comic triangle. with Alan McQueen and Teddy as her suitors.