We went to see two very contrasting Comedy Festival shows last week so I thought it would be interesting to review them on the same page.

Angela Barnes, The Classic Studio, 3rd May 2016

Angela Barnes is an award winning UK comedian who put herself in the firing line in 2013 with a Guardian article about how 'ugly' people (like, she says, herself) are undermined and dismissed. The nasty, patronising or just misguided responses she received to that article became the fuel for her stand-up show and formed the core of her act at The Classic. 

She had the whole room laughing along from the get go with her personal brand of self-depreciating, narrative comedy. There was audience interaction, but not the kind that would have made anyone uncomfortable. As the hour progressed we were drawn into the fraught territory of body image and the contradictory demands society puts on (especially) women to be 'presentable'. The show is political, but in an intensely personal way. Angela strips herself emotionally bare for the audience in order to show us the world through her eyes. (The appearance of emotional rawness was possibly amplified by the continuing lack of air conditioning in the Classic Studio, which meant the poor woman was almost melting under the spotlights.)

You might think the show sounds too earnest for good comedy, but Ms Barnes has a great sense of timing combined with the ability to read the mood of the room, so she was always able to burst the bubble of any tension or embarrassment and get us laughing again before the comedy momentum was lost.

Angela Barnes is a class act and well worth checking out if you get the chance.

Jay

Red Bastard, Q Theatre, 7th May 2016

Red Bastard is the creation of Kansas comedian Eric Davis whose show has been getting excitable reviews, including from a number of our friends, so we were really looking forward to this show. And for the first ten minutes or so, the scarlet monster did not disappoint.

Eric is a consummate clown, and unlike standard issue clowns, he's scary on purpose. He prowls and prances round the stage like an oversexed malevolent tomato whilst leering and sneering at the audience. To start with this was eye-wateringly hilarious, and if the fire alarm had forced an evacuation of the Q Theatre at about minute eleven I'd be raving about his show like so many others.

Unfortunately, Red Bastard only seems to bring a small amount of actual material to the stage. After that his approach is to encourage the audience to do something interesting 'every ten seconds', rather than provide it himself. This gradually descended into baiting individual audience members to reveal something about themselves, and then encouraging everyone else to either applaud them or collectively shame them. The comedy insults became, by turns, nasty, patronising and sexist. Two brave souls who voiced their discomfort with this out loud were quickly dismissed.

Eric's shtick seems to be to provoke audience members until they react emotionally, and then claim credit for putting them in touch with their 'true selves'. In fact, a good proportion of this show claimed to be dealing with 'truth'. But whereas Angela Barnes exposed herself emotionally while creating an atmosphere of shared intimacy, Red Bastard revealed nothing significant of himself while demanding total vulnerability from his audience. While Red Bastard defined 'the truth' in a superficial follow-your-dreams way, it was Angela who gave us a truthful, honest performance.

I found Red Bastard's clowning-meets-human-potential-workshop approach glib, manipulative and ultimately disappointing. I spent the entire show waiting for the big reveal, I went along with the spitefulness because I was expecting the monster to supply the punch line or deliver the denouement.

It never came.

Actually, you should probably ignore this review. Apparently, anyone who doesn't enjoy Red Bastard only has themself to blame for not fully participating. I know this because Red Bastard told us so.

Jay