Review: Sunday Night Laugh In, The Stand

Published on Monday 5 July 2010 09:41

Sunday Night Laugh In **** The Stand

SACRED cows were an endangered species at last night's Stand gig as all those topics we're not supposed to mention and certainly not supposed to find funny were given an airing by four first-class comedy minds.

Hosting the night was gregarious comedy giant Scott Agnew, who mixed good natured banter with the crowd alongside some near-the-knuckle gags delivered with the sharpness of an unguarded bacon slicer. His take on the smoking ban alone dropped many a jaw.

On first was mother-of-four Jojo Sutherland. Unlike those maternal paragons Kerry Katona and Katie Price, it's unlikely Sutherland would ever win Mum of the Year, but her acid drop gags about kids certainly deserved the reward it got from the audience.

Youth followed experience after the break with copper-topped comic Ray Bradshaw taking the stage. Bradshaw, a relative newcomer but showing no lack of confidence, provided top gags, mixing personal anecdotes with oddball one-liners to great effect. His delivery was occasionally a little non-committal which meant some of his better material didn't hit with as much impact as it should have but that was a minor quibble in comparison with the overall skill and clear comedy gifts on display.

Lugubrious Glaswegian Sean Grant was next on, a slow burner of a performer with a few of his gags taking a while to work their way into the crowd's brains, he still had some superb, shocking and altogether wonderful material and his timing lifted them to another level. As with all the other performers, taste or political correctness did not get in the way of a good punchline and he received plenty of laughs married to the sharp intakes of breath he was probably seeking.

Headlining was Stand favourite The Reverend Obadiah Steppenwolf III and in a night full of depth-plumbing excellence, he was still able to add some shock to the mix. Sex and drugs were the Rev's mainstays and in his white robe he proved he was as pure as the driven slush. A few of the gags fell flat partially because his southern drawl was occasionally laid on a little too thickly and one or two were topical zingers which were several months past their sell-by date.

This was not a gig for the faint-hearted or the moral majority. The gags on display were true creatures of the night. Told around the water cooler in the cold light of a weekday morning they might well shrivel and die, but shared with a few dozen people in a dank, dimly-lit basement freed from the shackles of polite society ut was a liberating experience.