The iconic Frog And Bucket in Manchester are staging a series of comedy shows throughout December with the same name – Christmas Barrel of Laughs. Clearly being aimed at the “works Christmas do” market, these shows include a well-known compere and two headline acts as well as providing a full three course Christmas dinner and access to a very well stocked bar. The latter of these contributing to an audience that was a little more raucous than you would normally expect on evenings like this. I arrived at the venue just after 8:00pm for an 8:30pm start but many of the people had been there for a couple of hours by that point, enjoying the festive spirit.
The compere for the evening was Brennan Reece, a comic I have seen on a couple of occasions previously. He has recently appeared on the BBC 'Live At The Apollo' show which may just be his first big break on the circuit – his material has improved each time I have seen him and tonight was no exception. He very quickly found some members of the audience to talk to and having established that many people were out with work colleagues, he embarked on finding those with the worst jobs in the room – that accolade seemed to go to the party of fourteen who arrived about ten minutes late, a fact that Reece did not let them forget for the whole night.
Reece’s general role was a little different this evening from when I have seen his own shows as he had some opportunity to make us laugh but his main job was to introduce the headline acts. The first of these was Dan Nightingale – originally from Preston but now living in Manchester and a regular at The Frog and Bucket. Nightingale had clearly been watching Brennan Reece during the introduction as he latched onto several of the same audience members, in particular a very loud member from one of the works tables who seemed to be able to dominate the microphone-enhanced comic.
I liked Nightingale’s style, he worked in his material with some very funny short stories but it always felt like he was still in conversation with an audience member. His general demeanour was one of a northern bloke trying to make a living in comedy and this was further demonstrated when he told of an experience playing a corporate gig in Kensington in London – where he felt he had been hired “only so they had the opportunity to laugh at a northern bloke” but he took the gig anyway as they paid him well.
Reece returned to the stage before and after the interval to keep things fresh and I think he suited the role of compere very well. He didn’t obviously move into a comic routine but remained funny throughout his interactions – everything felt like it was polished but was based on a reaction from an audience member. This is the sign of a comedian who is very confident in his own ability and is able to pull funny material out of his bag quickly when required.
The final headline act of the night was Rob Rouse, a comedian who has been around for a while and has done quite a lot of TV work over the years – mainly as a panellist on the usual shows like '8 Out Of 10 Cats' and 'Mock The Week'. Rouse was very different in his delivery from Nightingale but was equally engaging. His style was much more of a storyteller, with very detailed accounts of his experiences in order to hit a punchline – or in some cases several punchlines. His account of a prostate exam by the local doctor in his village, a doctor who lived three doors away from him was absolutely hilarious.
Rouse did suffer a little by being on stage several hours into the alcohol fuelled evening of many of the audience members – some of whom lost a little bit of interest as the night progressed. However, much of the audience – including myself – were very well entertained by three very accomplished comedians.
Reviewer - John Fish
on - 13/12/18
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