Bright Club

The start of the Dave Leicester Comedy Festival got off to a start at Upstairs at The Western on Saturday 8th February with Bright Club

Bright Club is an interesting concept. Give a selection of University researchers and students some stand up training and then let them loose on a stage for 8 minutes each before a paying audience. The idea is a couple of hours of intellectual verbal hilarity. Overall the material was quite good but needed editing and, of course, the delivery was far from slick. However, given the fact that it was their first time on a professional stage, it went well.
As with all comedy club bills the standard was a little uneven. Probably the best of the bunch was Thom Corah (now there's a good Leicester name!) whose opening segment on his penis was worth the ticket price. David Gleave, and air crash investigator, had his work cut out trying to make a gruesome subject funny. Only one act, Richard Fletcher, took notes onstage with him and the other while John Arnold had a nice bag of props to get added laughs. The rest of the group were pretty forgettable, to be honest.
All of the acts, except Aoife Finneran who rambled on about her friends and their love lives, suffered from performance issues. They all sounded like lectures or presentations that had got laughs levered into them. Although this was to be expected when their remit was to take their work subjects and wring comedy out of them.
The whole evening was held together admirably by compere Matt Holmes with his winning way with an audience and was wound up by standup Ahir Shah, currently touring comedy clubs around the country.
Don't go to this expecting Comedy Store slickness. But do expect an evening of laughter from unexpected subjects.

First published in Western Gazette 
© Paul Towers 8/2/2014