Mega-excited to be back at The Tap for a booster by Bickles!
True, it’s not the kind of booster to protect me from Covid’s winter rage, or even from the flu. But a giggle with Bickles, after such a long period of deprivation from live comedy, is guaranteed to be a darn-sight more effective than this morning’s Vitamin D pill.
Okay, so I’m somewhat late – not my fault – no-one dropped by my art studio (shed) to tell me Lockdown was over! It`s all Grayson Perry`s fault; thanks to him, I hooked up with a paintbrush way back in April 2020 and have been stuck-fast to my easel ever since. This is what happens when `make-do and mend`is made a la mode by by a clever revamp.
Upcycling, they call it!
Mixing up the contents of one’s garage and kitchen had to be more environmentally-friendly (and considerably cheaper) than ordering in a Daley-Rowney set of gouache paints from Amazon. How was I to know that combining my food colourants with magnolia emulsion and multi-purpose silicon was a bad idea?
Whatever. I’m here now.
As is my easel. And as is Trevor Bickles.
And I’m in just enough time to guffaw loudly at Trevor’s jokes about Daniel Craig, Todd Hardy and Shamima Begum. But ee bah gum, not sure what connection, if any, he’s just made between these three, as I missed the preamble, but whatever it was or wasn’t, I know it was and is very funny – everyone else is laughing, so whether I’m stuck at the tail-end with my own pun, or not, I see no reason why I shouldn’t join in!
And, before long, exorcists, guinea-pigs in snoods and Superhero dads are all given the Bickles’ treatment, but nothing tickles the fancy of the old regulars more than the grand finale, when our stand-up finishes himself off with some kind of an unseemly fantasy involving his partner and Sheridan Smith! More of a let down, if you ask me (you didn’t? oh well!); I mean what ‘s wrong with sticking to the tried-and-tested ways of old, when gags always ended in the same way they began?
Daniel Craig?
Moving on. And swiftly.
Buble? Is it really Michael Buble? Here, at The Brewery Tap?
But I stand corrected. Seems that this is not Michael Buble or, indeed, any other Buble – and this guy, Jake somebody-or-other, is by far the more famous in this part of the King (Queen?)dom. Okay, so he probably can’t sing (no offence, Jake), but to give him due credit, he’s cracking on with the jokes. To be fair, then he’s got little choice but to try and make something of himself on the comedy circuit, having turned down a teaching career. Seems he read some headline about a London school being taken over by a bunch of feral kids. And which school would that be Jake?
Surely British kids are as feral as feral can be, wherever they be? Something to do with feckless parentage, as in confused parentage, with so many of them (if your predecessor, Bickles, is to be believed), claiming to have DNA connections with the Smith family. And all of them, dead ringers for Trevor’s hot favourite – Sheridan!
Still, in spite of a highly-entertaining rant about the state of our schools, Jake ends his set with a ‘proud to be British’ declaration. Odd or what? Claims that Britain has the best buildings. Personally speaking, I’m not entirely convinced. Take a look at this report! And, if you don’t count the source as being credible, how about this? News without bias. And, even the most iconic buildings of them all are of such shabby construction that they appear to require essential makeovers of a most frequent nature, just to remain habitable:
Oh, what it means to be British!
But here I must leave Jake to dream on about all that is best and British, as he mistakes an abandoned KFC takeaway box for a hat from Christy’s of London, as I haven’t even reached this evening’s halfway point yet!
As always, I’m too busy trying to shoehorn in my own witticisms (all responses to which will be heavily censored), instead of blogging about the subjects to which I’ve been commissioned. **
And I still have Danny Mark and Louie Green on my itinerary – not to mention the new kid on the block – up and coming compere, Matt!
Sadly, just blogging about Trevor and Jake, has already consumed all of my creative juices for today.
It’s the interval and I haven’t partaken of my favourite mango cider, since before the first whiff of a virus,*** so I’m heading off for a chat with barman Johnny.
*Warning – Do not try this at home, with or without parental supervision! Please note that the author failed to secure a qualification in Chemistry, with very good reason.
** Please note that tonight’s gig is a charity event. My payment comes in the form of laughter rather than cash. Unfortunately.
*** That’s a lie. Just finished the first pint.
The Silly-Savvy Salopian in Suffolk: read, believe and write ... 