After a short summer break, Travestees Comedy Club returned with what was arguably the strongest lineup to date, and the venue was packed to the rafters. Compere Adrian Poynton was MC for the evening. In the comedy business for half a dozen years, he has carved a name for himself on the comedy circuit as a standup as well as for his acting ability in the extremely successful self-penned play A Very Naughty Boy, which followed the turbulent life of Monty Python's Graham Chapman, and is now apparently being adapted by Adrian for film.
Leaping on stage at 8.15pm, this lanky and ever-so-slightly camp chap was immediately on the attack, challenging a latecomer in a stripy top for sneaking in and being a burglar, as well as the absurdity of a comedy club in the middle of nowhere, located on a road with the very inventive name of Street Road. He is definitely quick witted and much of his material was off the cuff, as he talked about squirting himself in the eye with washing up liquid earlier in the day and about a ridiculous story involving a dog swallowing a mobile in the day's Daily Mirror. Constantly questioning members of the audience, he always had a witty and hilarious comeback, whether about someone's yoga classes or a pet rabbit (not quite what it seemed!). As well as his off-the-cuff material, there was also rehearsed stuff about an AA man whose truck broke down and who called the RAC for assistance, his stunt pilot friend, and his experience as a TV studio warmup act. Suffice to say a forthcoming TV Show called My Bare Lady will be worth a watch! The story of the death of his Gran and her subsequent funeral I felt was simultaneously comic and sad. Barely pausing for breath and with a charming and engaging style, he definitely warmed up the audience for the main acts. Danny Dawes Danny was born in Bristol, but being the son of a vicar, he was relocated to Essex as a young child, when his dad was promoted to bishop. From his promotional photograph on the poster, with what appeared to be capped teeth a cheesy smile and fake tan, I feared we would be subjected to a second-rate holiday camp-style act.
Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the material on offer. Danny is brash, confident and doubtless could have performed his act without a microphone, as having recently returned from an eight-year sojourn in Australia, he has a raucous Essex wide-boy voice exacerbated by a slight Aussie nasal twang. Despite being the son of a bishop, or perhaps because of it, his routine has an abundance of religious material, but as he stated both father and son have a similar job: standing on a stage in front of a crowd, talking rubbish. Suffice to stay, Danny's somewhat blasphemous material probably wouldn't crossover well to his Dad's usual punters. Having three daughters, Three, Seven and Eight (what rubbish names they are!), he talked about now contemplating having "the snip", as well as a new story about using Chinese herbal medicine for his insomnia, and his horror at discovering upon reading the ingredients list on the packet, that the primary component was semen. Danny rounded off his set with a fairly weak tale about a visit to Shark Bay in Perth, but apart from this, the routine was otherwise very strong and funny. Diane Morgan Despite being a theatre actress and appearing in such TV programmes as Phoenix Nights, Diane has only been performing standup for a couple of years. This lack of experience on the comedy circuit would not have been apparent had she had not had to refer to prompts written on her hand every few minutes.
Aside from this, she appeared relaxed and confident with some obviously well-rehearsed and consequently slick and funny material. Diane talked about the frustration of having a strong Lancashire accent and the associated problems it causes, when for example using automated telephone booking services for the cinema. Her suggestion of using an old lady to due the announcements on Tube trains swiftly linked to a piece about a CBeebies children's TV character called Underground Ernie. "What's that Ernie? An Asian man shot at Stockwell? Oh that'll slow things down a while." Material about having pets put down and the Little Book of Calm was hilarious, while her food-based material: the tale of a man wearing a beard net while working in Burger King, home-made food and new Chinese restaurant nearly had me in tears. But the zenith of her set was material about reality TV shows You Are What You Eat and 10 Years Younger, complete with extremely accurate representations of Gillian McKeith and Nicky Hamilton-Jones. In my opinion, with a routine as clever as this at this stage of her career, Diane will do very well in the years ahead. Milton Jones Milton Jones is apparently the reason Travestees came to Glastonbury. Quite simply the organisers wanted to bring Milton to town. He is an established standup with numerous live appearances behind him as well as a multitude of TV appearances, and his Sony Award-winning show The Very World of Milton Jones (BBC Radio 4) has enjoyed three successful series to date. As he appeared on stage with wildly unkempt hair, rubbery face, mad eyes and an ill-fitting jumper, Milton gave the appearance of a man verging on the insanity, and even his utterance of the single word "hello" at the beginning had the audience laughing and clapping for ages. Looking permanently dazed and as though he has been dragged through a hedge backwards, Milton is king of both the twisted one-liner and the pun, with an act pitched midway between that of Tim Vine and early Emo Phillips.
Listening to Milton you would believe he had just travelled the world: he has just returned from Australia (where he learnt that boo was the Aboriginal world for return, as a normal meringue doesn't come back); America (where he bought tickets for the Cowboys versus the Bears, and the Giants versus the Jets, but was disappointed when the matches were not quite what he expected); and France (where he saw the French film And, which was released here as ET). His material is fast paced and the supreme idiocy of some of it causes audible groans from the whole audience. Occasionally, it takes a split second to get the joke, yet this is all part of the impeccable comic timing: "Militant feminists, I take my hat off to them - they don't like that." He thinks that maybe he should settle down and have a mature relationship, but how can he in the middle of the conker season? The pollen count is a difficult job - especially if you have hay fever - one sneeze and you need to start again. His colonic irrigation clinic was hit hard by the hosepipe ban, and upon seeing an old man feeding the birds in the park, he wondered how long he'd been dead. The onslaught of material is relentless, and his sharp mind when interacting with the crowd is remarkable. One lady was asked her job, to which the reply was yoga. "Oh you've put me in a difficult position here" was the response. A PE teacher was ridiculed for being moronic: "I teach running - run; I teach swimming - swim; I teach a tiny little bit of geography - jog." And a lad who professed to be a student in Singapore was asked: "What do you study - noodles?" At the end he noticed that although some people had been laughing others had been smirking: "Well enjoy it while you can, because they've banned smoking and smacking." This is some of the most surreal yet funny material out there. With so much crammed into half an hour, my sides were aching, which shows that behind the ridiculous exterior of Milton Jones is a very sharp and inventive mind. | 
