Ladies and gentlemen, Punchline is in town! And for the first time ever, we were in two towns. Friday 25th October saw the comedy gala rip up Perth Concert Hall, and on Saturday 26th October we took over Edinburgh’s Picturehouse. Helping us to put on two awesome shows were comedians Des Clarke, Ian D Montford, Seann Walsh and Ivan Brackenbury. Here are the highlights from October’s Punchline Comedy Gala.
Des Clarke was the perfect host; his anecdotes are not only majestically funny, but also told with the spin of a professional story-teller. As a ‘local’ Scotsman (can a Glaswegian really call himself a local in Edinburgh?) his familiar references and home-grown jokes were a storming introduction to the Punchline galas. In fact, Des is so good at weaving a story together, that I could listen to him, always laughing, tell that one about the Olympic torch, over and over and over…
The opening act for Des to introduce, firstly to the Perth Punchline Gala and secondly to Edinburgh, was spirit medium Ian D Montford. Dressed all in white, long blonde hair and flip flops, you could see both audiences were stunned as they attempted to figure out what this man might bring to the lineup. What he did bring, was funny, cheeky and witty jokes, wrapped up in a genuine psychic ability and an edge-of-your-seat performance.
Up next was Punchline favourite Seann Walsh. Seann’s Edinburgh festival show ‘The Lie-In King’ saw him nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award this year, and his numerous TV appearances mark his success even more notably. Seann brought elements of his Festival show, alongside some classic observational material to create a highly energetic and hilarious performance like only our Seann Walsh can.
Headlining the shows was hospital radio DJ Ivan Brackenbury, so good he got a standing ovation at the end of his set. If you haven’t seen Ivan before, the gist of his jokes is that he makes a big shout out to one of the hospital’s patients, then teams it up with a completely inappropriate song. The outcome is side-splittingly good, conjuring laughter from the darkest corner of comedy and pushing Ivan’s sense of imagination to the forefront. Ivan broadcasted a very special show live from Punchline, straight back to the hospital, engraving an epic ending in to the weekend.
The beauty of Punchline comes from the immaculate details applied to every aspect of the show by our producer Rosalind Romer. From the class lineup, right down to the perfect venues, Punchline is by far, the best night of comedy in town. But don’t just take it from me, stay tuned and come along to the next show @punchlineuk facebook.com/punchlineuk
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