Comedy
By Ha Ha Comedy
Circus Theatre Bus Bar
Thursday 5th February
Review by Justine Spencer

Hang on. Give me a sec – I’m still recovering from the night. It was a pub crawl after all. After four pints, four pubs and four acts I’m still left thinking “What the hell happened?”

It started off at The Court’s beer garden with a pint and Scottish comedian Alan Anderson as MC for the evening. He hinted that throughout the night there’d be three great acts and one ‘shit performer’. In no way did we think he was serious. I don’t think even he expected his joke to develop into a literal prophecy.

Thankfully the first act, UK comedian Nik Coppin, wasn’t the ‘shit performer’. While his performance mainly consisted of the same jokes he performed at Aaaaaaaargh! It’s the best of Fringe Comedy from the UK, those who hadn’t seen him found him a laugh. He did introduce some new jokes that cracked me up, like how Disney movies use an English accent to voice the villain, despite the character being everything from French to Russian.

Next stop was The Brass Monkey with Adelaide comedian Micky D. If you’re married and hate KFC, this guy’s the comedian for you. I have to admit, after downing another pint, I found anything and everything he said funny. Even Micky’s description of his busted knee looking like Mick Jagger imitating a vagina sent me slapping me knee and laughing like a hooligan.

Elephant Wheelbarrow was the third stop on the crawl, with comedian Gordon Southern. He was hands down the best comedian on the crawl. I was sold when he observed that Australia Day primarily consists of downing Mexican beer, wrapping ‘Made in China’ Australia flags over your shoulders and listening to a Hottest 100 consisting of a lot of UK and US artists. He also had the crowd in fits of laughter when he accurately personified Australian cities as women.

After three successful acts I thought MC Anderson was lying to me when he said there was a ‘shit performer’. It seemed too obvious for the last act to be the busted one. While I don’t think Anderson intentionally planned on a dud comedian performing – we got one anyway.

Thankfully for the comedian, I’d had four pints by this stage, so I can’t even name him and shame him. Initially I thought he was good, he managed to consistently get a laugh out of the crowd, but as soon as a heckler approached him, he was thrown off. It all went down hill from there.

I’ve seen a lot of comedians before, but never have I seen one bomb so badly. He was completely oblivious to the crowd’s reaction to his jokes. It was clear the audience found his humour more offensive than comical but that didn’t stop him from digging himself a deeper hole. It didn’t take long for Anderson to signal to cut the show short and another heckler to label him the ‘shit performer’. This lead to the comedian grabbing his bag and telling the audience ‘Fuck you all’ before leaving Connections Nightclub. He started shouting at an audience member five minutes later when a handful of us left the venue.

It was a shame the night went downhill so quickly, especially after such a high. It’s definitely a show worth going to – I’d just bail after the third show if I had the chance to do it over again.

Comedy Pub Crawl is running until Sunday 8th February. Check it out in the Fringe Guide here.