On the way to Bath, I was thinking whether it was going to be a wasted journey. Who was going to come and see comedy on World Cup final night? I really was expecting to be the only person there. When I arrived at the Porter Cellar Bar about half an hour before the show, I was pleasantly surprised that another dozen or so people were there - and by the time it started, there was a reasonable audience. Natalie Haynes Just after 8pm, the first hour of comedy started with Natalie Haynes. She started her 60 minutes by warning everyone that she speaks incredibly fast, and gets a lot of reviewers saying that they wish she would slow down. I didn't really find it a problem. Her material is good enough to keep you interested for the whole hour. With the speed she talks, it's probably got twice the material of most Edinburgh shows - so you're certainly getting good value for money.
 | | Natalie Haynes |
The first 20 minutes of the show include a lot of Haynes' pet hates, which I think everyone in the room related to: prams in shops (something I've been saying should be banned for a long time) and British detective programmes - which leads me into the subject of Haynes' act, the American detective shows. The show's title, Watching the Detectives, more or less sums up how Natalie Haynes has been researching for this show. But it was her love of watching these programmes that prompted her to write about them - it has also turned out to be a great way of getting the tax back from the DVDs! For people who are fans of these shows it must be a joy, but Haynes does well to explain each programme she is talking about, for people who may not have seen it. With each show that comes up she explains the main characters, a few plot outlines, and most importantly why she thinks it's good or bad. In her opinion, Diagnosis Murder reigns supreme, and Murder She Wrote has a very different murderer than Angela Lansbury wants you to believe. She explains vividly her love for these shows and convinces people, like me, who've never been interested in them, to watch a few episodes. The show concludes nicely with the ultimate detective series and a piece involving all of the characters mentioned in her show. It's a very enjoyable hour of comedy about a subject she is obviously very passionate about. If you're a fan of the programmes, Haynes' show is well worth seeing, but is equally pleasurable to everyone else, if only to hear some ridiculous plots. Andy Parsons A long interval to get the penalties out the way and a few more audience members later, the second preview got under way with Andy Parsons. After 10 minutes or so of lighthearted complaining about the stage, the lights and the backdrop (a poster about another event), the name of the show was revealed: International Indoor Championship Moaning. The show is exactly what it says on the tin: an hour of moaning. This doesn't exactly sound that appealing, but it's a hilarious hour of comedy from one of the country's finest comedians. A long moan about England in the World Cup went down brilliantly with the audience (despite the fact a lot of them had not been watching the final), and he got huge laughs when mentioning that England don't need to get better at football, but better at acting. Most of the show is spent moaning about the Government, which probably got the biggest laughs of the evening. Throughout his performance, Bath's Little Italy, celebrating directly outside the venue, created a lot of disturbing noise. Parsons dealt with this brilliantly though, making jokes about what he was going to do to Bath's horn shops. He also dealt with hecklers and disturbances from the audience wonderfully, trying to find out exactly what they were moaning to their friend about. The show has a superb finale which takes moaning to the extreme, and illustrates how good the British would be in the Olympics if it were a sport. This is a fine hour of comedy that I would recommend to anyone. The Comedy Cavern is a friendly, intimate and reasonably priced venue, with some more great Edinburgh previews coming up. Check out the Comedy Cavern website for more details:
Comedy Cavern >
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