Comedy - Barnstormers

Henrik Elmeris big in Sweden. Huge in fact. In his home country he’s one of the biggest TV stars there is; he’s in demand all over Scandinavia. Like most of his compatriots he speaks good English, and he frequently comes over to the UK to perform in his second language. He tells weird, slightly surreal stories in a deadpan manner. In one he sends his foot to sleep, puts on a gorilla costume, and wakes it up with a shock. In another he plans a bank heist with a difference with two complete strangers in a pub: one’s role is to tell everyone to stay calm, while the other must perform a comedy sketch with him, before they all hop away waving their arms in the air. Unamused? It’s all in the way he tells them. The man is seriously weird, and seriously funny, too. His show is called The Sweirdish Mind of Henrik Larsson, and it’s pretty must-see stuff, if you like that sort of thing.

The other comedians on tonight aren’t half bad, either. Sally-Anne Hayward tells breathless autobiographical anecdotes. She is still recovering from winning the Holsten Pils ‘Fans of Comedy’ prize, which amounted to £1,000 and a year’s supply of Holsten. Which is a lot if you drink more units than the government suggests you should. Simon Fox is an old-fashioned style comedian, who, in his words, ‘relies on his craft more than his material’. Boom boom. As ever, the inimitable Kevin Precious comperes. Kevin is from Hull and has a degree in Religious Studies. DL