Review: Paul Sinha, Lewis Schaffer & Markus Birdman – St Dominic’s Catholic Club, Newcastle

Paul Sinha

Well look at The Grinning Idiot – a whole two years old. How time flies, and they’ve came on a treat in these last couple of years. This was my first trip to their St. Dominic’s venue and it had all the makings of a great room – the venue was adequately filled and the atmosphere was welcoming and friendly.

Markus Birdman was our opener this evening; he took us through the joys of turning 40 with particular emphasis on life with his 6 year old child. Markus seemed to lose the majority of the audience on a couple of occasions – I don’t think he’d gauged them particularly well – but these faux pas were forgiven and he got them chuckling along to his reflections on life. The flow of the set wasn’t perfect either, and it seemed, at times, he was struggling to see where he was going next; but it didn’t put too much of a dampener on proceedings. Birdman had some haphazard stories to share with us, which lead to some superb punch lines that evoked a good old chortle audience-wide.

Middle act Lewis Schaffer may well be my new favourite comedian. Having sadly never experienced Schaffer before, I found myself in hysterics and deeply regretted not taking the time to see him in Edinburgh this year.  He was funny, clever, and highly observant about society and its make-up. His set was organised chaos and completely endearing, and whilst it overran by about 20 minutes it still felt fresh – I could have listened to his ramblings well into the night. They were well thought out, crafted together beautifully and his insane irony was simply fantastical. Schaffer’s show is brilliantly titled Free Until Famous, but, to be honest, I’d happily pay through the nose to see this all over again – I can’t imagine it’s ever the same twice, which is something you can’t say of a lot of comedians these days.

Paul Sinha closed The Grinning Idiot’s second birthday bash, and certainly hit at his usual level of excellence. The audience loved his cheeky candour, and on this showing Sinha proved he’s a seasoned professional; he just presents himself with effortless grace. If you haven’t seen him before you need to. The ex GP always delivers a strong message in his show and everything he shares with us about his life and loves echo the overriding theme of the set: that prejudices can and should be challenged. And whilst Sinha’s material is intelligent it is also completely relevant, and he captured and maintained my attention throughout his set. What I love most about Sinha’s comedy, though, is the cut back honesty. He delivers on topics that are clearly important to him, and it’s so much more than just pub politics being bandied about on stage – it’s funny and it’s clever.

From February, The Grinning Idiot nights will be reduced to monthly appearances. I urge you all to go out and see some local comedy – it’s the only way we can see great acts like this in the North East. Thank you, John Smith, for inviting us to your birthday party. My only complaint is the lack of cake!