Just the Tonic at the Leicester Square Theatre, 7th March 2009
“Just the Tonic” has found a new home at the Leicester Square Theatre (formerly The Venue) and, apart from a few technical glitches, the relationship looks set to be a happy one. You can’t quite smell the paint from the recent refurbishment but the auditorium still feels very new and the 2 bars inside the auditorium (one either side) work very well for comedy gigs. Drinks are served throughout the performance and the difficult job of getting the audience back to their seats after the interval becomes much easier.
The compere for this first night was Charlie Baker who warmed the crowd up with some fairly gentle interaction and a great routine featuring his jazz vocal skills, including a hilarious version of “The Lady Is A Tramp” and his own take on updating jazz for the MTV generation.
The first of the featured acts, Gary Delaney, fired off a stream of edgy and often surreal one-liners (or two-liners if we’re being strictly accurate) which generally stayed just on the right side of the audience’s acceptability line and confirmed his reputation as a great gag writer (he also works with Tom Binns on the Ivan Brackenbury material) .
The next act to appear was the unbilled George Ryegold, delivering a highly original set in the character of surgeon (maybe he is, maybe he isn’t – it doesn’t really matter either way) featuring the kind of dark medical humour which helps keep doctors and nurses sane. You have to admire someone who can get laughs from a routine about impersonating the ghost of Harold Shipman and the audience did, despite the abrupt ending to his set.
Josie Long is a performer who is admired by many comedy insiders although this doesn’t always translate into success in a club. This set contained some material from her Edinburgh previews from last summer plus some new material including a perfectly-pitched parody of a Blitz survivor interview (that’s the WWII Blitz, not the ‘80s club). The set was generally well received, although some of the more esoteric material seemed to miss the mark with a Saturday night (Tim Vine) crowd.
Is it a hurricane, is it a whirlwind? No, it’s Tim Vine delivering punchlines at breakneck speed. As each punchline arrives, the audience is still convulsed from the previous one. The audience is very partisan (the intro to the “Pen behind the ear” routine gets an ovation) and they aren’t disappointed. The influence of Tommy Cooper is obvious but this isn’t a tribute act – Tommy Cooper could never have worked at this speed. Strangely enough, the highlight of the set isn’t a one-liner; it’s the extended ventriloquism routine which is really well put together and ridiculously funny for a mainly visual gag.
As a whole, the night gave a really good representation of the current live comedy circuit: an all-rounder compere, 2 quick-fire gag merchants (Jimmy Carr – Jimmy who?), a dark special interest act and a performer’s (or insider’s) favourite. The only (minor) criticism of this first night in the new venue is that the timing of the intervals could have been a little tighter. The second interval seemed to go on forever, losing the atmosphere which had been carefully created up to this point and almost forcing the acts to start from scratch. Otherwise, a great night.
