o i almost enter to win tickets to some band that i haven't listened to, simply because i've heard of them... Then my friends says i should enter for the "Evening of comedy with Horne and Corden" so i'm like "What the hell, i won't win anyway". Turns out i did, and i'm so glad i won. It was an unbelievable good night, compared to what i though it would be. When i found out the line-up cosisted of Horne and Corden (never seen the show, don't care), Sean Lock (seen on QI, very funny), Noel Fielding (Mighty Boosh is great, and their live tour was amazing), Jack Whitehall (Guy from BB something or other - don't care) and Nick Mohammed (never heard of him) i was kind of exited, but not too much because i'd never heard of most of them. I decided to go, however for Noel and Sean.Firstly, some annoying woman came on and started talking - she was annoying, though she left quite quickly and Horne and Corden came on. They wandered onstage and wasn't quite sure what to expect - i'd heard very mixed reviews about them. But they came on and started doing
their thing, then got in an arguement about James doing his "comedy rap". Halfway through a dull speech by Matthew Horne, mr Corden decided to rap away anyway, and it was fantastic. I couldn't quite make out what he was actually saying, but you could tell he had practised it because it flowed flawlessly, and it just shouldn't have. When this was met by a massive cheer from the crowd, he smugly looked at his accomplice, he had to admit it was good - scripted or not, he looked impressed.They then introduced the first stand up act of the evening, Nick Mohammed. This came with a murmer of a cheer, as he appears to be a little known comic, but quickly won the audience over with his fast talking bizzare style of characteristic comedy. Changing character in nothing more than a few seconds after picking up a random prop from a table at the side of the stage. While, perhaps not comedy gold, his characters did get a good laugh, and a well deserved cheer and applause after his set.
Back come Horne and Corden, this time in character as, i assume, one of the characters from their show, or perhaps just characters they though of for the night, but Horne pretednging to be
some fashion guru, who pretty much called up two audience members and insulted them. While not particularly funny in itself, Gok Wan then appeared to defend them and basically laughed Horne off the stage. They then introduced Sean Lock, who's set was marvellous.He casually wanders on and looks around his first joke was something along the lines of "My wife is so fat..... *dramatic pause* She sit's in her room crying". Now, in essence This really isn't a very funny joke, but there was something about the way he said it, and the 'pause for effect' that everyone expected the punchline to be amazing. When it turned out to actually be quite a depressing punchline, it seemed to get an even bigger applause. His style of comedy
seemed strange, though it seemed to mainly consist of various anecdotes, combined with a few one liners, which worked. Some of the more 'un-PC' jokes appeared to get some of the biggest laughs, however quoting them on here just won't do them justice - so i won't. His final line get very little response, as it seemed like it had just been tagged onto the end of another joke, but when he said "Oh, that was my ending line" everyone found it incredibly funny, and he got a massive applause.Again, on comes the annoying woman fromt he start, to introduce the break. 20 minutes later, Horne and Corden are back on, Horne being some sort of historian explaining about the hall, while Corden stumbles in through one of the audience entrances and pushes his way through one of the rows to get to the stage, telling one woman to "Get the **** out of the way" and screaming at some other guy for 'trying to touch his cock'. This got a big laugh from the audience, as did the 'reunion' when the two schoolchums got onto stage and started talking. He then leaves to get driunks, and you can hear him screaming at the secuity guards to let him go, kicking his way through the backstage area just to tumble out on stage again with some drinks and embarass Horne some more. They then stumbled off stage to allow Jack Whitehall to come on and do his set.
I didn't have great hope for this guy, as i only knew he'd done something to do with Big Brother and couldn't care less. Turns out the guy was actually very funny. At only 20 he is still starting out as a comic, and yet comands the audience and is able to conjure images and make people laugh as if it's nothing. After ranting about how ridiculous some of the news is, and his take on the given scenarios, that, while a very simple thing to do - heres something lets laugh at it, the way he phrases things and the words he uses just make it so much funnier. It must be difficult to stand up to a 5,000 strong crowd and do your set at just 20, but he manages and seemed to cope easily.
Back come Horne and Corden, as themselves this time, to do some more of their act - more to fill the time than anything, i think, but it was good they were there - it was very funny and then they introduce the wonderful Noel Fielding.
Possibly the most bizzare comic i've ever seen, as he seemed to just fade in and out of various stories and go off onto seemingly random rants about other things mid sentence. He also seemed to lose where he was a few times, and mumbled around explaining things that didn't
necessarily need explaining, possibly because he though it needed explaining just because it looked odd, or he was just trying to gether his thoughts i am not sure. It could ismply be that that is how he scripts his shows and tries to be funny by appearing so innocent and childish throughout most of his sets. There appeared to be 3 main stories to his set, all mixed up with many smaller jokes about completely irrelevant subjects or topics. Predominantly, though, he was explaining that as he was bored after finishing the Boosh tour, he had just gone into his garden and started turning rocks over, just to find and squish small spiders and insects. There was also the unwritten law that no matter what situation you find yourself in, even if it potentially dangerous, you can always calm it down by simply qhispering to someone, as they have to reply in a whisper. He then did a piece of material that he aditted didn't get many laughs, but was his favourite piece so he did it at every one of his shows about sea monkeys or something. Most of his material really shouldn't have gotten many laughs, and i think very few comedians could pull it off, but everyone who knows anythign about Noel Fielding would understand that his mind works in a seemingly random way itself, and he can do pretty much anything. Whether it's laughing at himself or something funny he saw on the street, for some reason it's amazing. Despite it seeming random and poorly though out or pieced together, when you think about it, it is actually incredibly well done and he deserves all the credit he gets.
All in all, i think it was a fantastic night, and was well worth going to. It was also for a very good cause, and even though the evening had a slightly more serious undertone than was perhaps made clear, other than a short film halfway through the night and two of the people in it coming onstage and talking about it. I'm glad they didn't try and force the whole reason for the event on us, throughout the night - while it wasn mentioned, and had stuff coming up on the big screen throughout the night, if they had tried too hard to push the cause on us, i think it would have made the evening slightly less fun.
