Review: Russell Howard at the Nuffield Theatre

On Saturday 5^th October, the same night as the freshers’ ball, Russell Howard and three other comedians came for The Comedy Bar’s Big Gig.

Southampton’s own Nuffield theatre

The MC, John Robins, did a great job warming up the audience and should be commended for his on-the-spot humour. His jokes were largely made at the expense of audience members, requiring him to think up his material on the spot, but he was easily as funny as any other comedian with a well polished skit.

Rob Deering was the first on the bill to take to the stage, and his strange but charming musical comedy style was maybe twice enough to make me laugh loudly, and otherwise merely consistently amusing rather than side-splittingly funny. His use of a loop pedal and guitar effects was still well worth seeing, but to make a whole stand up act from it seemed a little much. Other musical comedians such as Tim Minchin definitely outshine Deering, but if musical comedy is your thing then check out his twitter.

Next to the stage was my personal favourite of the night, Ellie Taylor. I might go as far as to say she was possibly funnier than Russell, who naturally drew bigger laughs owing to his status. Heckling audience members, making self-deprecating jokes about her upbringing in Essex and discussing her ‘bellend’ nephew (three years old), I barely stopped laughing from start to finish of her act, and she’s definitely a comedian I’ll be keeping an eye on in future.  Her twitter is here, and I’m definitely excited to be following her.

Russell Howard followed Ellie in the bill, and received the largest applause and cheer from the crowd. Given that his place on the line-up was only revealed a couple of days before the gig, it still seemed that a lot of the audience had turned up solely to see him. By his own admission, he was trialling some new material so it wasn’t all going to be hilarious, but it generally had me in stitches. He lost momentum a couple of times, which was a shame, but otherwise the new material sounds good and I encourage you to catch his upcoming tour if you have a chance – it’s easy to see how he’s come so far as a comedian!

The last performer on the bill was Pete Firman, magician and comedian. The magic was solid, but in places his humour seemed a little desperate. He made several allusions to feeling that we, as a crowd, weren’t engaging, which became more true each time he brought it up again. In fairness, he did have a tough act to follow (Ellie Taylor!) and a big name to contend with (Howard), but his set was perhaps not quite up to speed with the other performers that night.

The whole gig receives 4 stars, carried mostly by Ellie and Russell, who were rightly billed together in their own section. Robins’ MCing held the night together beautifully, and even without the attraction of a celebrity comedian I’m almost certain I’ll go back to another Big Gig – tickets were only £10 for students and definitely worth every penny.