Perfect tonic (From Western Telegraph)

Perfect tonic

Livee review - Laugh Lines Comedy Club, Queens Hall, Narberth, March 10th

This month's comedy club show was seemlessly held together by Liverpudlian compere Silky (by name, not by nature).

The comedy went down like a refreshing, teeth-grittingly cold double gin and tonic, without the tonic.

The bitter lemon was provided by the first comic Will Hodgson, a Barbie T-shirt-wearing, pink mohican-sporting ex-wrestler from Chippenham, who declared war on the ultra masculine Nuts magazine, confessed his undying love and respect for Rolf Harris and his didgeridoo and admitted to having had a lifelong crush on Miss Piggy.

A very interesting if not disturbing insight into the psyche of someone you may actually cross the road to avoid. He did have an undeniably funny repertoire, but one got the feeling he stayed a little too close to his script.

A little interaction with the audience would have added a more natural feel.

The ice was provided by the compere, whose seemingly unrehearsed spontaneous wit, proceeded to reduce hecklers to stammering wrecks and, to the other extreme, he succeeded in enticing one audience member up onto the stage to give a rendition of Mistletoe and Wine.

His ice cold responses were fired back at particular members of the audience like machine gun fire, impossible to dodge.

Unpredictable, spontaneous and relentlessly harsh, my eyebrows seemed permanently glued to my hair line.

The gin was provided by headline act, Hal Cruttenden, who also shot hecklers down in flames while simaltaneously apologising profusely.

Initially Hal was someone who seemed to come across as a polite upper-class middle-aged camp Londoner. However, he rapidly descended into delightfully funny self-deprecating rants, characterised by frequent bouts of moral depravity.

Suffice to say that he subjected the image of Father Christmas to such depredation that Christmas will never feel quite the same again.

Next month's not to be missed comedy club will, for one month only, be held in the Plas Hyfryd Hotel on Thursday, April 14th. The headline act is Dan Antopolski followed by Robin Ince. The compere will be Pat Monahan, who delighted the Narberth audience last year.