Penultimate live show of the year already – what the actual fuck.
Blizzard Comedy was a little quieter this month, with many of you taking one look outside and reasonably thinking “Fuck that” and honestly that is fair. But despite that we had a cracking time with a superb line up of mostly queer, mostly neurodiverse, entirely brilliant comedians, as we always do here.
Opening the show we had Benny Shakes, a comedian you may already be familiar with after making a huge impact in the digital content space during lockdown, and being just an absolute pro on stage once live gigs were back too.
Benny Shakes’ comedy mind is capable of covering the dark, the cheeky, and the downright hilarious, demonstrating a grasp of language, society and comic timing that makes him the envy of comedinas everywhere. Disability is a huge theme in his set, having cerebral palsy himself. It is a delight watching him play with pre-existing stereotypes and non-disabled anxieties about interacting with disabled people to great comedic effect. Praising the venue’s accessible toilets because that meant he didn’t have to share with the rest of us fuckers is a gutsy way to start a set and boy did it pay off.
Benny is genuinely something special on the circuit, and if there’s any justice in the world he’ll be filling arenas within 3 years.
Following Benny was a fellow disability advocate and a hugely important figure in pushing for opportunities and spaces for disabled comedians to thrive, Mark Nicholas. Mark is a natural born MC, with a comedy delivery that is incredibly warm and welcoming but that doesn’t stop him revelling in pushing buttons and, like Benny, using pre-conceived notions about him to his advantage.
Mark is one of those comedians who always seems to be having fun on stage, which on top of being an excellent joke writer in his own right, creates a sense of infectious joy that ripples round the room and leaves everyone feeling better and wanting more.
After the interval we were joined by Saeth Wheeler – a quite new addition to the circuit, but you wouldn’t know it from watching them. Saeth oozed confidence from the moment they stepped on the stage, and delivered 10 minutes of some of the best queer comedy I’ve ever seen – and that’s basically what I spend all my free time watching.
Saeth is criminally underrated and has so few followers on social media for how great they are, go follow them now, seriously. Comedy legend in the making.
Then we had Sam Serrano. What more can I say about Sam Serrano? Every now and then you’ll see a comedian and you just can’t remember the circuit without them. Their presence on the circuit is definitive to how I view comedy in 2022. Like Mark, they just have a warmth radiating off them that’s completely at odds with the content of their material, which just makes it even funnier. It’s hard not to fall in love with Sam ruthlessly taking down transphobic narratives or reaching to dark and self deprecating analysis and anecdotes of their own past and personality.
Sam Serrano is bigger than the sum of their parts – and no amount of praise could do them justice. Sam’s going to go down in comedy history as a lasting icon – go and see them now.
Closing the show, we had another of my favourite queer comedians of the 21st and probably last century – Cerys Bradley.
Cerys is an act who is as accessible as they are chaotic. Not many comedians could take off their binder to reveal their tits while tragedy by Steps plays – only to remove the tits which turned out to be prosthetic – and yet still be a comedian I could recommend to literally everyone.
Cerys is a comedian who absolutely does not talk down to their audience, and is earnest in everything they say. The bulk of their set was listing a bunch of the traits that made them realize they might be autistic – and I’m choosing to ignore just how many of them I related to. None of their set felt like it was a set designed to make people laugh, more that it was a person talking about their experiences and jokes were incidental and unintentional – yet they’re also clearly so perfectly crafted that you’ll be howling with laughter without even realizing they’re making you laugh. I don’t know If that makes sense – but it’s meant to be a compliment.
Basically, Cerys Bradley is dead good at comedy and makes it look effortless, whilst upon dissection clearly has put so much work put into. Trying to find a way to convey this in a useful soundbite for promotional reasons is escaping me right now, sorry Cerys.
Okay here’s a soundbite: “If you don’t find Cerys funny, then we have fundamentally different tastes in comedy and that’s okay – but also I strongly disagree because Cerys Bradley is very funny.”
I’m sure there’s something useful there, if not, then just make something up and attribute it to us if you want, that’s fine, we endorse you.
If you would like to see the streamed version of this show, this is available on twitch.tv/blizzardcomedy until December 5th – and you can see our final live show of the year on December the 5th in Gullivers, Manchester with Ishi Khan, Eliott Simpson, Craig Wilson, Maxine Wade and guest host Tom Short by reserving your free tickets here: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/11118/blizzard-comedy-live-featuring-ishi-khan
