Review: Anvil Springstein, Jack Gardner, Nicola Mantalios-Lovett, Mr Drayton & Dave McBeth – Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle

Anvil Springstein

The Tyneside Cinema is without doubt one of the North East’s hidden gems. It is a beautiful venue crammed with three floors of history, and the Tyneside Bar, situated on the top floor of the cinema, provides a simply gorgeous room for live comedy. Last Thursday, The Laughter Surgery hosted an interesting range of styles, from eccentric opener Mr Drayton to headliner Anvil Springstein. Sandwiched between the two were Nicola Mantalios-Lovett and Jack Gardner.

‘This is one of the few tricks that actually works’, says ungainly magician Mr Drayton after some particularly successful interaction with a couple of young lads in the crowd. But that’s why Drayton’s act works so well – it’s just silly. He has that Tommy Cooper humour down to a tee. The quirky appearance and his table of tricks set the mood nicely, but the material is decent, too; and, well, the fluffed magic only compounds the chaotic humour of his act. There were points here when Drayton spoiled his lines – and normally that would cost an act a laugh or two – but somehow it added to the experience. Mr Drayton is simply magic.

After a promising start to the evening, two newer comics, Nicola Mantalios-Lovett and Jack Gardner, offered conflicting approaches in the middle section.

Mantalios-Lovett, a sharp stand-up with a flirtatious streak, opened by confessing her material is in ‘archetypal comedienne’ territory: men and vaginas, as she put it. But barring the disruptions of the cackling women at the back of the room, Mantalios-Lovett’s set was a steady subversion of gender stereotypes, illustrated with a few polished routines on plastic surgery, family and race. It was a particularly impressive section of her set (bizarrely presented through the eyes of dolls) packed with natural laughs, and though she could probably do without her self-deprecating lines, Mantalios-Lovett has at least five minutes of decent material here.

Gardner’s unnerving character ‘Mr Face’, however, seemed to split the crowd slightly. One punter claimed ‘Mr Face’ was the scariest thing he had ever seen – and he meant that as a compliment – but perhaps that is Gardner’s problem here. This bout of surrealist anti-comedy was an enjoyable performance with a good laughter rate, but you get the impression that he is perhaps more concerned with shocks than laughs. Undoubtedly, though, Gardner was the most memorable act of the night – and in a community of new acts all offering similar styles, it’s impressive that he offers something so original to the local circuit.

Like opening act Mr Drayton, there’s a polished feel to everything headliner Anvil Springstein says and does. An observational comic who frequently plays on his Liverpudlian background – wonderfully so in his Scouse jokes routine – Springstein offered some sublime punch-heavy material, from a piece on Carlisle to his own take on Christianity, the latter a personal favourite of mine. Springstein lost me, however, on his ‘difference between men and women masturbating’ piece – it was out-dated and a little lazy – and he’ll probably admit himself that he was on stage five minutes too long. This Scouser in exile is a solid headliner, though; the backbone of a night like this and a joy to watch.

The Laughter Surgery’s resident MC, Dave McBeth, failed to deliver throughout the night with clumsy compering and a few jokes that had the potential to be funny but, ultimately, left the crowd cold. Given the quality of the bill – and the overall success of the show – it was a shame that McBeth fell short of the standard set by other acts.

Further information on The Laughter Surgery can be found on their website here, and on the Tyneside Cinema’s website, too.