Review: Danny Deegan, Lee Kyle, Holden Holden, Ray Kane and Steffen Peddie – Infinity Bar, Sunderland
Danny Deegan
The Big Owl Comedy Club at Sunderland’s Infinity Bar didn’t seem so ‘big’ with the crowd amounting to only 29 people. The comedians were going to have to be funny to enhance the atmosphere of the room.
First up was MC Steffen Peddie – he obviously has a few fans as there was a table who had booked especially to see him. If you like comperes who are a bit crude, target the audience and swear quite a lot then Steffen is right up your street. Claiming that one of the audience looked like an X factor winner from about two years ago was one of the best received jokes of the night before the booze started to flow. Perhaps it was due to the lack of people, who knows. However, one thing Steffen does do to fill in the awkward silences is state “Just me then?”, and this makes it more tolerable.
Ray Kane was the first comedian to grace the stage, but with similar jokes to Steffen about Stephen Hawking, paedophiles and wearing leotards it feels like we’ve already heard it before. However, he tried out his new stuff, which got very few laughs. Kane said, ‘Well that’s the new stuff debuted’, but it seems that he may have to go back and re-think some topics. After talking about quite sensitive subjects like funerals and his cat having testicular cancer it seems that Kane’s material is of a certain taste and, on this showing, not that well received. However, his joke about the man who invented cats eyes was quite amusing.
After Ray Kane, two new acts took to the stage – Holden Holden, an America character, and geography lover Lee Kyle. Holden Holden was an ex night club owner from New York who had recently been divorced. He moaned about his ex wife and the life he used to have, receiving few laughs from the crowd. But I will give it to him, he did a very good American accent.
Lee Kyle was in a league of his own. Firstly he had props and even looked intriguing – he slightly resembled a magician in his suit and slicked back hair. Carrying on stage a case which contained pieces of paper which were in fact hand painted flags, we couldn’t see how this would be funny, yet it was. Kyle got the biggest laughs of the night so far by pulling out flags and asking the audience to name the country- it was simple but effective. But more was to come; singing a song about to the tune of ‘You’re The Devil In Disguise’ was both quirky and original and had the crowd roaring. Perhaps the most impressive thing of all about Lee Kyle is that he’s only been doing stand up for six months.
Now time for the headline act, Danny Degan. Touching on subjects such as the death of his 90 year old grandmother, selling his kidney online and everyone’s immature side he was on to a good start – until a drunken heckler decided to take over. But being a professional Danny saw the funny side and included it into his act, using the mike stand as a graph of how funny his set was to great effect.
Apart from the slightly slow start Danny was a very good closing act, and the night had certainly progressed in the second half, when everyone was more relaxed and the comedians were frankly funnier.
The Big Owl Comedy Club at the Infinity Bar and Restaurant is held on the first Friday of every month. The next night is December 3rd.
