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The Chuckle Club rolled into the kingdom again this month, bringing with it a copious supply of laughter and enjoyment.
Held over three nights at the Bahrain Rugby Club, The British Club and the Intercontinental Regency, the show featured some hilarious moments from John Robertson and Mandy Knight plus a struggling set from Liam Mullone.
During Robertson’s barnstorming opening act, with typical Aussie flair, he initially derided the surroundings as a ‘high school gymnasium’ but seemed to genuinely relish the intimacy of the environment.
The comedy was largely improvised and flowed naturally thanks to frequent repartee with the audience; with yours truly being the source of much banter about the failure of youth after a show of hands revealed I was the only attendee born in the Nineties!
I loved Robertson’s performance and, like all great comedians should, he left me wanting more. Hoping the following acts could live up to the opener, I was pleasantly surprised when Knight did just that with some humour almost as garish as her outfit!
Filthy humour and sarcasm is my favourite kind, and it was delivered in abundance here. It genuinely had me in stitches thanks to how well-constructed and on-the-button it was rather than being shock humour for the sake of it. Of particular hilarity was a performance-long catfight with a heckler, whose every call-out opened the lady to another unfortunate barb.
Unfortunately, the night ended on a slightly disappointing note as Mullone seemed to misjudge his audience. With the first two acts a clear indication that short, snappy humour was the way forward, his slow-paced delivery and complete lack of audience participation somewhat deflated the atmosphere established by his predecessors and many jokes rambled on too long without a strong enough punch-line to justify the build up.
I was really hoping for him to turn it round and win us over, but it never happened. However, the effort was there, so perhaps with a shift earlier up the card and a more concise act, it would be a whole different experience.
As Meat Loaf once said though, ‘two out of three, ain’t bad!’
– Kristian Harrison
