Review: Trapdoor Comedy, Joshua Brooks, Manchester
The wonderful, original and phenomenally talented Simon Munnery headlined Trapdoor Comedy Club’s debutant show at Joshua Brooks last week, as one of three wildly different acts.
Host Tony Basnett made for an excellent, in his own words, ‘fluffer’ for a weekend audience, and made a proper point about audience members’ phones being turned off and not just to silent – something I couldn’t get on board with more if I tried.
Basnett points out that this could be ‘the most underground comedy club in Manchester’ – literally.
The basement at Joshua Brooks is a great space for comedy: it’s small enough for a busy, intimate gig, but not so small that you feel the need to work hard to fill the air with disproportionate responses – so, perfect for a smart Saturday audience.
Support came in the forms of Andrew O’Neill and Liam Pickford, and was more than sufficient in cementing Trapdoor at Joshua Brooks as a fantastic alternative comedy night.
Andrew O’Neill has a bombarding, quick fire style (whether with anecdotes or one-liners); but this moves only to engage his audience all the more.
O’Neill is incredibly easy to warm to. His comedy is consistently and brilliantly bizarre, and his ability to seemingly appeal to everyone makes him a brilliant act to see live.
Manchester-based comic Liam Pickford’s dry, languid self-deprecation about the size of his head (set in Medieval France), and his talent for bleak – ‘why is Morrissey here, and why has he got mumps?’ – sometimes lengthy, but always very funny, analogies made his set a massive change of pace after O’Neill’s.
If you missed him here, Pickford will be at the second MACE show on Wednesday.
There seems to a deceptive calm around Simon Munnery, that lulls you into expecting something gentle.
His style if comedy is muted, perhaps, but far from gentle; he seems to have a wonderful ability to be simultaneously relaxed and incredibly high speed.
Like O’Neill, Munnery has an aptitude for anecdotal and more gag-heavy musings and set pieces alike – from stories about meeting Madonna and touching Ben Elton’s shoes, to a very rapid, very easy game of musical statues with the seated audience (which, incidentally, O’Neill lost by being mid-sip).
Munnery has a very subtle physicality to his routines, which marks him out all the more as an original comic staple.
Specifically, his physical interpretation of Mission Impossible III – consisting explosions and artillery exclusively – was hilarious, very short and very simple. And everything was bookended by a self-aware catchphrase ‘it’s all happening’. It very much was.
‘This is where comedy belongs – in a basement’ Munnery stated. Andrew O’Neill also made clear how fabulous a club Trapdoor Comedy is, and he’s right: you should go.
The next Trapdoor Comedy Club is at The Old Monkey with Mick Ferry and Bethany Black. The second Trapdoor show at Joshua Brooks is 28 March, with the brilliant David Trent, Benny Boot and Danny Sutcliffe.
You can find more information on their website, and by following Trapdoor Comedy Club on Twitter.
