Comedy - Barnstormers

After a difficult season in Pelham House, the Barnstormers Comedy Club starts its new term in a different venue, which might well suit it better – above the Royal Oak. It’s a bit rougher-hewn, it’s a bit dingier, and you can drink pints there, rather than little bottles of beer and glasses of red wine. Call me a philistine, but stand-up comedy isn’t the same without at least three pints down you. They have also changed showday: performances will take place every second Sunday of the month rather than every first Thursday.

The best-known performer tonight is one of stand-up’s rising stars, the character comedian Simon Brodkin, who most famously plays chav scally Lee ‘Nelsy’ Nelson on Channel 4’s weekly The Morning After Show. He has three other characters in his repertoire, a sleazy holiday rep, a pretentious trustifarian, and an Asian doctor. Comedian Harry Hall, he of the ludicrous collar, is quoted in Chortle Magazine describing Brodkin as ‘the funniest new act I’ve seen I years’. We don’t think he was joking. Also on the bill are Paddy Lennox, an Irish Dave-Allenalike who is also part of the Monkey Butlers, and old timer Kevin McCarthy, who dubs himelf The Man With the Beard and is famous for his low-key conversational patter. McCarthy was voted by Club Mirror Magazine, the trade magazine for working men’s clubs, as Comedy Act of the Year in 2005. So there you go. DL