Conversation Garden

Review by: Paul Towers, 06/02/16

Conversation Garden Does a Panel Show

Dan Nicholas, Jack Britton & Lewys Holt

Upstairs @ The Western, 6 Feb & 20 Feb 2016

“the anarchic lovechild of Shooting Stars and Blankety Blank.”

Conversation Garden has been doing the rounds for a few years and has garnered a cult following, especially amongst students and similarly lazy 20-somethings.

In 2014 the trio retired the show, vowing never to return to their debauched ways. So when they decided to make a comeback for this year’s Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival they got together over several gallons of lager and, voila, came up with a whole new concept. Conversation Garden Does a Panel Show.

This late night, 18+ only, entertainment is the anarchic love child of Shooting Stars and Blankety Blank. Dan Nicholas is the hapless ringmaster trying to keep order between team captains Jack & Lewys, a couple of guest comedians and numerous ‘volunteers’ dragged kicking and screaming from the audience just to make up the numbers.

Questions are grouped into rounds that vary from awful puns to beer drinking contests. All done in the best Student Union tradition. The audience is actively encouraged to get involved and, unsurprisingly, get more answers right than the panellists.

Tonight’s show was sold out but the guys return on 20^th February for another evening of barely controlled chaos, nudity, drunkenness and the occasional naughty word. Dan Nicholas can also be seen hosting the Upstairs at The Western Comedy Workshops with Gary Phillpott throughout March and April. www.upstairsatthewestern.com

First published on Western Gazette

and on London Pub Theatre blog