How is it nearly the end of 2023 already? Good Lord, where does the time go.
The Penultimate live Blizzard of the year was just as much a spectacle as that context implies (assuming it implies a lot of spectacle, I’m not really sure).
We had the ever brilliant Tom Short taking on hosting reins, covering everything from pseudo-magic tricks, Christmas cracker jokes, improv, clowning, the works.
Tom is a brilliantly versatile performer, and apart from the 5 people who walked out after he made them read a Christmas Cracker joke, everybody loved him from start to end. He keeps the energy going, elevates the other acts to greatness, and ensures a dynamic and unique comedy experience to everyone watching, whether or not they’d seen him before.
Which isn’t to say our line-up weren’t also brilliant. We had the returning Bella Humphries to open the show with camply dark humour, and endearing manic charm, providing a very honest chaotic journey through her life and experiences. Bella has broad appeal, covering everything from learning second languages, to hormonal birth control, meaning there’s something for everyone! (Those are the only two interests anyone has, it is a binary, you either like learning languages, or you’re on hormonal birth control, pick one.)
Next we had Mark Nicholas, who is a delightful, incredibly friendly stage presence that hides a wicked charm and wit. Openly autistic, Mark speaks a lot about neurodiversity and disabilities in a way that our audience is guaranteed to find very relatable (can’t imagine why).
Mark’s work is engaging, earnest, and witty, making him not just a brilliant advocate for disabilities and neurodiversities in comedy, but a phenomenal comedian in his own right. Clever comic anecdotes, groanworthy pun work, raising awareness of autism in an entertaining way, and all tied together with a stage presence and delivery that hooks you on every word.
Next we had Stuart Dunlop – a relative newcomer to stand-up specifically, but a veteran comic writer, performer, host and improviser and indeed many other mediums, and it shows. Stuart has the confidence performers with twice his experience would envy. He tackles subjects with expert ease and a dash of whimsical silliness underpins his entire comedy ethos reminiscent of the likes of Sean Lock and Suzie Izzard.
Stuart is full of mischievous glee, welcoming energy, and a real knack for owning and enhancing the performance with expert delivery. Already a brilliant act, and just getting better and better, in several months’ time who knows where he’ll be, but it’ll be somewhere good, and fucking weird no doubt.
Dan Webber followed and has a showstopping stage presence, oozing with confidence and nailing comic delivery as a masterclass case study for anyone wanting to do public speaking of any nature, let alone comedy.
Every sentence deliberately and expertly constructed, timing is impeccable, intonation is perfection, and all in which is service to the creative comic writing that is present in all Dan’s words. Genuinely one of the greatest performers I’ve ever had the joy of listening to, and his performances are an experience that every comedy fan should have at least once.
And closing the show we had the inimitable Tom Mayhew – who may be one of the sweetest boys in comedy. But don’t let that fool you, Tom is as sharp as he is friendly, both in his wit and targets thereof. He’s so nice but won’t hesitate to take Tories and bigots down a peg or two, and you’ll just enjoy listening to him talk so much that when his killer punchlines show up they will slap you in the face out of nowhere and knock you off your feet.
A master jokes craftman, social commentator, and all around great lad. We love him, and you will too if you don’t already (which if you’ve heard of him, dw you already do).
And there we are, a brilliant line-up as always (congratulations me for being a damn good booker). If you want to watch the streamed version of this show it will be broadcast at 7:30pm UK time on twitch.tv/blizzardcomedy – and available to watch for 14 days afterwards.
And Tickets for our next live shows can be booked over on: https://www.outsavvy.com/organiser/blizzard-comedy
