Tonight I was in Sheffield at The New Barrack Tavern for the Funhouse gong show. This is a lovely venue and you can’t go wrong with a gong show for bringing variety and surprises to a bill. There was quite a mix of acts tonight, with some on their second ever gig and some who are already progressing, such as Louis Etienne and Lauren Smith. This was a packed out venue and it was nice to see Grenville Glossop there and it’s always a pleasure to see all at the NBT, especially Bruno. Mike had a cracking night compering, chatting to a South African lady and a police call handler who had once taken a call about alien footprints in the mud. Unusually, this was a show that ended in a draw, which was a fair result.

Edd Russell

Opening was Russell, who was well supported by a number of friends in the audience. His southern voice sounded a bit out of place to begin with, but he’d got some decent material to deliver. YLT and idioms were very good, with red sky being his best line. He did slightly run out of material before his time was up, but improvised enough to carry on. Russell’s delivery wasn’t particularly strong, it came over more as him just talking, but given enough stage time, he’ll develop stronger skills in this area.

Nick Mason

Mason opened well with Yorkshire/vegan, which was short and hit the spot and then he went into a routine about Crohn’s disease and a wait at a till, which was a splendid routine. Everyone wanted to hear how things panned out and there were plenty of laughs on the way. Like Russell, he finished before his time and so had to improvise. If he’d timed the Crohn’s routine better, he could have left the audience on a cliffhanger, as I’ve seen Kevin McDonnell do, and then finish off the routine for his final minute. However, nothing after Crohn’s was in the same league.

Louis Etienne

I’d only seen Etienne once before and thought he was very impressive, so I knew from the moment I saw the list that he would be a contender. Even just walking to the stage you could see that Etienne knew what he was about. He has the swagger of an experienced act who is confident in his abilities and he’s right in this. He mixed solid material, a cracking delivery and a wonderful ad lib to the South African lady to power his way through to the final.

Louis Etienne was joint winner.

Gary Johnson

Johnson has won here a couple of times, so I was expecting him to do well. He came to the stage wearing a cat flap over his face, which was the set up for a strong joke. He then followed this up with some bad puns which sold tremendously well. Johnson is great at working an audience. There were a few misses, but you’d hardly have known that from his performance and the room were enjoying him that much, they didn’t seem to matter.

Rich Woolgar

Woolgar is a new comedian and at the moment he is something of a mixed bag, with the good far outweighing the not so good. DJ and gaming was good, his delivery was confident and better than many. He also had some stage presence. What let him down was that quite a few of his jokes were pretty predictable, such as the baby’s hair, ex girlfriend/wife and those in his last minute. However, it’s far easier for him to come up with more unique material than it is for another act to develop the stagecraft that Woolgar has in such a short time.

With better writing, Woolgar will have the makings of a very good ten.

Elise Lawrence

Lawrence had improved a bit since I saw her at Yellow Arch, but still suffers from her material not being that strong and her delivery not having enough power to counterbalance this.

Lawrence held the room and made the final.

Harry Jenkins

I saw Jenkins have a superb first gig and tonight he was equally as fantastic. He began with some room work, which was refreshing to see and this led into him talking about his local pub. His timing on the topper to their special night was cracking. His lockdown material, especially thrive, was some of the strongest of the night and he told it in such a way to give it full credibility. Jenkins last minute joke took the roof off.

Jenkins was the joint winner of the night.

Bo Walker

This was Walker’s second gig and whilst he wasn’t helped by some music accidentally playing during his set, he didn’t really have enough in the tank for the full five minutes. He’d got some good material and his nervous energy did give his performance a lift, but the room work fell a bit flat and wasn’t really a good substitute for not having written more material. Walker’s a likeable act and I can easily imagine rooms warming to him, so given more writing and gigs, he should develop nicely. It was a shame to see him gonged at the final vote.

Stanley Norman

I was looking forward to seeing Norman, as he’s popping up on some nice bills. He had plenty of energy and carried the room with his mixture of surreal material and impressive performance skills. It was great to see him making such use of the audience. I enjoyed his set. I was also a bit concerned, as there were only two people in the audience wearing shirt and tie and one was a character act.

Omar Aysha

When an act opens their set by saying something about how it isn’t for the easily offended, usually it’s going to go one of two ways and you can generally guess which way after two seconds. Tonight it didn’t go well. This was only Aysha’s second gig and he might be better if he relaxed a bit and didn’t try so hard to be edgy. A lot of his material left a sour taste and simply wasn’t funny enough to get over this. He was voted off at the first vote before he had chance to show the room if there was more to him.

Lauren Smith

Smith is a good act and tonight she had more polish than many on the bill. He material holds together well and her performance skills are solid. There was less of a feel of a gong show entrant tonight and more of a set being performed. Smith was on a double, taking this gig in on her way home and it showed. Given how well she’d done, I thought she’d be a contender for a top three spot.

Michael McKenzie

This is the third time I’ve seen McKenzie and as he’d been good the previous two times, I was looking forward to him this time. There’s absolutely loads to like in his performance. His material is consistently strong, he has a pleasing dark side to his writing and an eye for original lines. The audience liked him, too and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on more bills soon.

This was a rare gig, where Mike got home before I had the review up.

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