Gonzo's Comedy Night Review - 29th January 2016

Stalwart Gonzo's, I believe we meet again! There's a lovely vibrant feeling of warmth that encompasses you as you enter this back-alley watering-hole. The staff here are always accommodating as the rhythmic beats pulse away the night with a clutter of conversation. Our choice of beverage is a mocha using only Stranger's finest coffee. Warming, smooth and delightful as always. But we are here on business! The Tome of Judgement in hand, let us begin what is Gonzo's Comedy Night!

It feels like far too long since we last sat down amid the crimson-and-candlelight gloom of perky Gonzo's Tea Room, gazing at the stage in collective hope of jokes, japes and jocularity. Fortunately, one of the premier events amid Norwich's growing comedic calendar is back - Friday 29th January 2016 saw local rising star Nelson T Gombakomba Junior joined by a host of familiar and fresh comic talent from every corner of Great Britain. Naturally, Mr White and Mr Mason attended to appraise the acts set to ensue - and after a previously resounding Christmas show, hopes were definitely high...
 

Our host for the evening was the evergreen Alexander Oliver, who took to presiding as Master of Ceremonies following his initial stint as such in December 2015. Mr Oliver was on remarkably strong form on the evening of 29th January, however, easily eclipsing his previous performance. Taking his penchant for quick-witted audience interaction to hitherto unseen heights, Alex confidently laid down his trademark humour, rich in innuendo, exasperated bluster and his long-standing rivalry with the loud Gonzo's Tea Room coffee machine. A resilient showing in the role of host, yet such was his degree of audience interaction that we ended up missing his own material - we hungered for his humour! 4/5 Stars.


Ah Alex, interactive and delightful as always! His temperament warming the room, slowly bringing the audience ever forward in accepting comedy into their hearts. Upon his opening there was a builder gentleman who decided to heckle - and Alex in all his quick-wittedness shut him down before any further comments could be made. With the audience on side Alex, brought forth some of his own material rather than just MC'ing, which was tremendously refreshing! 4/5 Stars.

Mr Cross... as you may remember, last time I had the "pleasurable" experience of enduring your comedic rant on life, which was to be honest disdainful and boring. So to hear your new works at January's event was, in all honesty, superb! I noted from my colleague that last time you had noted of our antics and it was wholeheartedly received! Your sense of dark humour and your analysis on relationships had me chuckling throughout. Your notes on when wedding dresses would be worn a second time was hilarious. The only thing I could add to this is BRING MORE OF THIS TO LIFE! And don't be scared to interact with the audience, your set has come on leaps and bounds! You have earned yourself 3.5/5 Stars!

The initial act of the evening was Ryan Cross, a returning regular without whom, we daresay, it simply wouldn't be Gonzo's Comedy Night. Notable about his set of the evening was the fact that his usual penchant for humour at the bleeding edge of black comedy seemed to have been toned down, instead replaced with much quipping about relationships and their complexities. It was refreshing to see that each of his jokes and the entirety of his material was fresh to our eyes and ears, yet the audience reaction was frequently muted. Mr Cross is improving, however, and his diligence certainly shows. 3/5 Stars.

The lovely lady Ciara. Alas, what's new... well, not the opening, which was the same leprosy joke as last time, and didn't start all too well. However, the note of your father running around shooting pigeons in a balaclava, spiking the interest with the IRA, was brilliant! Material heavy on political stance and the ineptness of the PM was interesting, but what got the laughs were the family anecdotes! 3/5 Stars for this performance - bring more anecdotes forward and don't be afraid to communicate with the audience.

Another returning face to the fray was Ciara Jack, whose material leaned on her experiences in both writing for BBC Radio Norfolk's comedy programming, as well as performing in 'Jack The Ripper - The Musical' in Norwich last autumn. Her set wove politics, feminism and highbrow class humour to well-paced effect. However, there was somewhat more consulting the notebook onstage than in previous performances we've witnessed, although her killer punchline regarding certain yellow fiends infesting popular culture ("If you don't know what a Minion is, it's basically a small yellow half-blind Joe Pasquale in dungarees...") was met with an eruption of laughter so collective and profound that Ciara herself almost seemed startled. 3.5/5 Stars.

Daniel Offen, a Londoner up in Norfolk... oh no! How will he cope? Well, to start with, a loud opening, and a plush bee? This man is seriously odd, and started with the audience on side. His rant on feminism and action figures was delightful... but alas, it took a turn for the worse. The political rants began and thus the audience began to wane. The jokes were not hitting the mark and when being signaled the set time was up, he carried on trying to win the audience back... repeatedly. Forgetting your set halfway through wasn't the greatest of outlooks either. Not really impressed. 2/5 Stars.

Hot on the heels of the previous act's satire and political musings, Daniel Offen roared onto the stage with impactful gusto, rousing the restless crowd from any stupor they may have been lost within. Tracing his influences to 1980s stand-up comics such as Ben Elton, there was also more than a hint of Ade Edmonson in his delivery and approach, with material that danced from politics and Thatcherism (which he confessed to being too young to have felt any direct impact from), through to puns and pokes at the absurdities of modern life. Although nothing truly stood out, Mr Offen demonstrates an aptitude for stand-up that seems eager to cut loose - I'd certainly welcome the chance to see him perform again. 3/5 Stars.

An interesting man is Jack Shanik. His dry sense of one-liners were short and to the point. Heralding from the northeast, his sense of humour was really "Oh dad, why did you say that?!"... and it had its moments where laughter could be heard. But resoundingly it was quite plain. Towards the end the jokes just got worse and the audience was starting to go and buy more drinks, maybe to scrape away the pain that was being bled through on stage. However, there were delightful notes of the north, but Mr Shanik, your one-liners are terrible. Bring a conversation to light with the audience and you will be a welcomed returning act. 2.5/5 Stars.

Oh me, oh my. Mr White likes to write - thus it stands to reason that Mr White likes wordplay, and this made watching Jack Shanik's performance a true delight. From reciting a tract of a Lewis Carroll classic in an impregnable Northern drawl - proclaiming it to be 'Alice In Sunderland' - Jack went on to zap out zingers including describing wearing a big fuzzy wig and spinning on the spot as a means to arouse himself as his 'Afro Dizzy Act'. More ingenious is the fact that Mr Shanik knows what he's doing and almost seems to welcome the occasional audience groan at a punchline - at one point he even turned to me during the performance and remarked, "It's not easy setting comedy back forty years, mate!" 4/5 Stars to this cheeky chap and his irrepressible punslaught!

The Pope is among us... just lacking the robes and hat. His slow building performance really hit a stride once the audience started laughing. His notes on life of "public school breeding villains" and the "struggles of being an adult when you're still a child at heart" had the room in resounding laughter. Short and to the point, Benedict Pope hit the mark every time, rounding off with a remark about "disarming a bomb with a raw lamb shank" - the room was lifted of the previous maniacal curse of the political gripe. 3.5/5 Stars. Please come back again - you, sir, will go far if you can deliver more material!

Benedict Pope is demonstrably clever. That said, he started somewhat flat and unremarkable in his Gonzo's performance, relating life in London to an audience he then lit up with but a single word. "Milk." Indeed, in chronicling his bizarre experiences with milk deliveries in his London home, Mr Pope turned a simple series of transactions into a hilarious rant about his experience with the milk company, which devolved into a fracas in which his argument - "Please stop sending me milk!" - was met with the counterargument of... well, being constantly sent milk. He also singlehandedly mustered the best quote of the entire evening, when he explained that the woman he had called responded, "But you can't cancel, because then THE MILKMAN WOULD BE SAD." 4/5 Stars!

The one the only MONTY BURNS! Mr Burns opened with a huge entrance, he immediately picked up on the previous heckler and killed him before anything was said. His remarks on Jehovah's Witnesses brought the room into near rapture! He related Robocop to Jesus, and his antics when meeting dates for the first time and asking point blank "have you made a sex tape yet? Because this is as good as your gonna look..." Noting his wife's comments "my wife says that I have boundary issues... well she didn't say that but she wrote it in her diary!", he then treated us to his remarks upon airbrushed models and how men will sleep with anything - "what's the point, we will still sleep with you!" - but ultimately finishing with how his wife always plays to win at Monopoly... and when she does win, screams "Eat my p***y motherf****r", which brought the house down. 4.5/5 Stars for an amazing performance. A great headliner to arrive at Gonzo's!

Hilarity hit a high point with the arrival of Monty Burns to the stage, who seethed into being before us like a furious Scottish Tony Stark. Screaming at the audience until they capitulated, he held the room rapt with his dark wit and familial angst. Tabulating the 'filth' he witnesses on children's TV and the innuendoes he finds there, Mr Burns then swept the acrid cloak of his comedy across the bar, citing an attending couple as resembling a girl group songstress shacked up with Shrek, before shouting that the well-coiffed barman was a protagonist from Twilight. Agitated and animated, Monty hit the mark as the night's strongest comedian by far - no small feat amid such talented peers. 4.5/5 Stars!

Find Monty On Facebook here! Monty Burns Comedy
Follow Him on Twitter! @Montysrants 

The Great Nelson once again presented himself to a stunning audience, laughs of the differences between countries and the contrast of old among newer material was a sly move but it worked. Speaking of his "head" teacher in kind, there were notes of an African doctor coming to England, but the NHS cuts hitting them forcing him to leave. His comments on "all white people looking the same" brought a round of laughs and he even noted "there were many Canadians in the bar". But the finisher were his notes on "if women ruled the world there would be no nuclear bombs... just long text messages", which killed the audience. Not the strongest act of Nelson's, but certainly held his own. 3.5/5 Stars.

The one, the only, the almighty Nelson T Gombakomba Junior rounded off a fine night of comedy in the fine city. Nelson's excitement and zeal were electric - he had just got back from a previous night at London's Comedy Store in which he received one of the strongest positive responses of his career. Nonetheless, on home turf, Nelson was applauded as a local hero, yet his comedy of the night was surprisingly off-the-cuff, seeking input among the audience for 'fun facts' to round off his established wit ("There's a new thing called the 'after-sex selfie', but in Norfolk it's just called a 'family portrait'..."). It's always a pleasure to see Nelson perform, and Gonzo's Tea Room remains his comedic thinktank, in which fresh jokes are blended, poured and refined. 3.5/5 Stars!

All in all a solid night of comedic delights - a fine line up, and some great moments. Nights in Gonzo's are truly amazing and shouldn't be missed just because it's not on Prince of Wales Road! Drop in, try the rum or let the staff make you a cocktail of merit, you will not be disappointed.

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White Mason Reviews appreciates the talent and co-operation of Viktoria DeRoy Photography in chronicling the capers of the evening! Viktoria is a local photographer who frequently attends - and dutifully snaps! - each monthly Gonzo's Comedy Night, with an ever-growing portfolio besides.

White Mason Reviews was approached by Monty Burns to add links to his social media in his review segment - we are happy to accommodate other such promotional requests from featured or forthcoming acts. These requests do not detract from White Mason Reviews' unbiased critiques and are strictly conducted on a not-for-profit basis.