It feels damn good to be back.
Thursday 17th April we at Blizzard Comedy celebrated our 6th anniversary as a comedy club. We hadn’t had a live show in a while so it’s perhaps cheating a little bit, but this indulgent passion project of mine has now existed in some form for over 6 years, and that is damn surreal. I had no clue this project wouldn’t just fizzle and die after a few months like they usually do, but thanks to the enduring support of Kirstie, and not to mention all of you who keep coming along to our shows as if you’re actually enjoying them or something, we’d managed to keep it up!
This little break we had was much needed for my own mental health and life, but I cannot pretend that from pretty much as soon as we went on a break I have been anticipating this particular moment and show. I always knew I wanted to celebrate our anniversary somehow, and I think we managed to nail it with not only a line up of absolute Blizzard Comedy faves, but also sets that were just so quintessentially Blizzard from them to create an atmosphere of merriment and whimsy that would be hard to exactly replicate with any other room and audience.
We opened the show with one of our long-time collaborators Bobbie-Ann Jones – a master craftsperson of language to create some delightfully silly stand-up routines from everything from graffiti in school textbooks to the restaurant chain “Five Guys”. Bobbie-Ann has a way with words and creative writing that makes her work among the most engaging I’ve ever seen. No matter how many times I see her perform, she always manages to surprise me and catch me off guard with a new angle or approach to her set.
Bobbie-Ann is one of those comedians who clearly puts a lot of care and attention into every single word of her sets, and it shows, and it pays off. An absolutely gripping performer. It is to all our benefit that she’s decided to use this power for silliness and whimsy. Bobbie-Ann really is a generation defining talent and it is always a privilege to get to work with her.
Next we had a last minute hastily cobbled together set from Laura Monmoth, which may be one of the most context specific “you had to be there” sets I have ever seen, and I am delighted that it was crafted in honour of this historic anniversary show.
Laura was just coming up to watch the show, but after a last-minute drop out I dropped her a message asking if she fancied any stage time, and she absolutely delivered, writing a new, very self-aware set on the train up here, and yet meticulously crafted with callbacks, meta commentary, and genuinely brilliant punchlines in a way that both could only have been written on the night of the show but also demonstrates absolute expertise in the art form. A true delight to behold whatever she’s doing, and an artist who absolutely commits to the bit 100% whenever she has an idea however batshit it is, and it’s absolutely beautiful.
Next we had Helen Brooks, providing us a multimedia middle-aged ’90s comedy experience which for some reason really appeals to our audience, can’t imagine why.
Helen’s delivery isn’t exactly deadpan but is definitely understated and a bit lower energy than the night had been so far – and combines with her very niche and specific material references work wondrously to create routines and punchlines that had me crying laughing at times.
Helen’s eye for detail and observations about the time period she grew up in were intensely relatable to the rest of us aging millennials in the audience. She offers a fun peek behind a time and culture that is vaguely familiar but not directly experienced by those of us younger than that. Not enough comedians hyper focus on this particular period in culture in their sets, and as someone who is a bit too young to directly relate to this but used to watch a lot of comedy from the era it is a weirdly nostalgic experience, particularly getting to hear it through the comic lens of a woman who grew up then, and not out of touch weird older men mocking it without understanding.
That’s what makes Helen’s set work. She speaks from a lived understanding of the topics she’s covering, and it comes across as celebratory mocking when she does, which I think is low key how everyone feels about the ’90s. We all know it was worse in nearly every way culturally, but we low key miss it.
But I digress – throughout this set Helen has a wry wit to her. She’s got great observations and the relatability factor going for her, but every now and then she’ll drop a punchline that will absolutely catch you off guard if you’re not prepared for it. A brilliant comic mind with a charmingly millennial set that should be funny to anyone either directly relating to it or laughing at us for being cringe. Either way, great stuff.
Closing the first section was Eryn Tett – an act who has previewed with us and recorded her special with us a few years back – but has never actually done a set at one of our main shows until now! And oh boy, I’d say we were in for a treat, because we absolutely were, but honestly I think she had nearly as much fun as the rest of us in this chaotically bonkers set that everyone lost control of in the most anarchically fun way possible.
It’s really hard to comment how much of Eryn’s set was planned chaos and how much was just a result of having an audience who commits to the bit to a detriment. Whatever the reason, Eryn’s set is an unforgettable performance. One of the most playful and almost clowning like sets of the night, the jokes, as brilliant as they were, took a backseat to the performance in the room, punctuated by 10-20 seconds of dancing to horsegiirL after each punchline, all while a handshake was being passed back and forth throughout the small room our club is in, gradually getting weirder with extra flourishes and additions to the greeting.
So much was going on during this set, the only comparable vibe is when I did the Glang Show last year – where the performers are more there as entertainment toys and facilitators rather than the comedians actually in charge of the show. All of this was curated by Eryn’s endearing comic personality, Hedberg-esque jokes, and eye for creative whimsy second to none.
Don’t misunderstand me, Eryn Tett is a phenomenal comic writer, and it shows. But more than that, she successfully set a comedic atmosphere that was elevated to a point where her jokes became almost irrelevant. That is a comic skill that very few people can pull off in a way that works. Truly one of the best examples of boundary breaking comedy in 2025 in the literal sense, not just angry men creating a club where they can say slurs and no one is allowed to be annoyed or upset by it. If you want a truly one-of-a-kind comedic experience, check out Eryn Tett at a comedy club near you, IMMEDIATELY.
And finally closing the show with another longtime collaborator we were treated to Katie Mitchell’s new Work-In-Progress show “Spine Hygiene”. Having seen Katie’s previous show preview with us last year and it nearly bringing me to tears in both the laughing and emotive sense – I cannot overstate enough how much of a huge step-up Spine Hygiene is looking to be already. Katie’s last show was phenomenal and one of the best previews I’ve ever seen for sure, but Spine Hygiene already seems to be shaping up to be some of the most focused work I’ve seen from her, and all without losing the more abstract and surreal elements that make her such a joy to behold as a performer.
I won’t go into too many details for spoiler reasons, but Spine Hygiene is a superb textbook example of turning hardship in your life into a compelling stand-up show. The anecdotes are all punched up with gags and punchlines to keep them enjoyable without losing the core narrative. The show’s structure has a really satisfying arc to it, with lots of elements dropped early on that come to serve very important functions later on – and while there is definitely still a bit of refining work that needs doing to condense the show into a tighter hour for festival purposes – Katie has the bones here of a show that would be an incredible two act tour with an interval break just for her. The show’s got it’s vertebrae, if you will.
Katie is such an animated performer, and while for reasons that become clear very early on in the show the use of physical comedy is a lot more subdued this time around, she doesn’t lose any of that energy – channelling it instead through creative use of props, costumes, multimedia elements, and just her own vocal delivery range. Katie is a juggernaut of a comic performer, and that is demonstrated even more so by how well she’s adapted to a medical need to switch up some of her older performance style.
Katie’s is the kind of work in progress show that you leave thinking “This is what the art form is for” afterwards. I am so excited to see how it continues to shape up the more she works on it and eventually hopefully does a proper professional tour of it, because this show absolutely deserves one.
And that was our show! What a way to celebrate 6 years. Huge shout outs and thank yous to all of the acts we had on, as well as Scarlett for helping manage the door/my fretting anxiety all evening beforehand, Kirstie for helping me build this lil community and promote it to all the right people and places to ensure we maintain our perfect lil audience and doing infinitely more behind the scenes to make these silly shows possible. Everyone at Gullivers for hosting us so gracefully and being our homebase for the entirety of our life near enough, and of course all of you for keeping us going all these years ❤ I don’t know if or when we’ll be back on a full time monthly basis – but tonight has absolutely rekindled my love for performing and hosting these lovely shows, so even if it’s on a more sporadic basis, we can promise you we’re not going anywhere ❤
If you would like to experience/relive this show, you will be able to do so on our Twitch from 7:00pm on Monday 28th April right up until Monday 12th May. Follows us on https://www.twitch.tv/blizzardcomedy to be notified when we go live!
And to be notified about future shows (including a very special show in July) why not join our mailing list here.
