Review: Rob Rouse, El Purnell, Paul Sinha and Matt Reed – Stockton Arc

Rob Rouse

Any gig that kicks off by boldly welcoming the compere to the stage accompanied by the instantly recognisable opening guitar strains of the Guns ‘N’ Roses hit Welcome To The Jungle complete with strobe lighting effects has a lot to live up to in the comedy department, but yet again the promoters behind Ten Feet Tall Comedy show how it should be done in front of (you could say a little too) an up for it Stockton crowd this evening.

MC for the evening and Sunderland born Matt Reed struggled to find his footing at first with the most comedically unforthcoming audience I’ve ever witnessed. It soon became a running joke among the punters interrogated by Reed to reply to standard audience banter questions like ‘What do you do for a living?’ with ‘not much’; and when pressed further to claim to work for one particularly unfortunate guy in the front row. Reed commented himself saying that he’d never played to an audience with their own catchphrase before and that the ‘boss’ in the front row has an impressive work force of about 300 who all seemed to hate him yet came along anyway to the staff do tonight.

Thankfully the audience respected the MC’s requests to keep quiet while the acts were on and to only heckle Reed himself. This enabled Paul Sinha to provide the crowd with a brilliant, and uninterrupted, opening set. Sinha bases much of his material on being an openly gay, Asian man and qualified GP. His best material is in his father’s learned liberal attitude from living in the UK for 40 years and being asked to appear on a panel based around the right to perform stand up comedy in relation to Islam – which he admits himself that he has no right to be involved with, Sinha being a gay Hindu gentleman.

In the middle section we were given Ecuador’s numero uno in character act El Purnell, who does not speak a word of English throughout his entire set. Now, there are some fairly lame jokes and slapstick routines during El’s set, but he’s by far the best new act showcasing original material I’ve seen for quite a while. His delivery is energetic with a carnival atmosphere, incorporating audience members into his act to provide his punch lines while skating round the ‘language barrier’.

Rob Rouse closed the gig in much the way it started: calm, low key, unassuming stand up involving perfectly crafted tales of truth mixed with some observational humour about the world around him. This style may not at all times be suited to the more inebriated members of the audience, but when allowed and uninterrupted, Rouse brought down the house with his family stories and good natured anecdotes. He also, along with Sinha, is a master of storytelling and sapping the comedy from real life situations made clear by his routines on being stuck in Dubai during the Icelandic volcano incident, his Polish/English sheepdog, and the reaction of his vegetarian girlfriend to country life. Rouse really brought the night in full circle and was the highlight of another amazing Ten Feet Tall gig.

Catch 22 continue to showcase the best in different types of comedy on October 15^th with Beat The Gong – MC’ed by Danny McLouglin, tickets for which are available here.