James Hately, even tried looking like a bee. Good stuff.
Alfie Moore, a policeman by day. He confiscated my crack pipe.
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29th May - ABBCOM SHEFFIELD, Bar Abbey, Abbeydale Road.
Featured - Al Dawes, James Christopher, Tubby, Matt Tiller, Tom Roche.
I (gareth) wasn't around for this one so left Gunnell in charge. Numbers were down slightly maybe due to half term or something but we still had 55 in and apparently it all went well. Gunnell shared the compere job with Abbcom favorite Leroy but unfortunately both forgot to take any pictures. Idiots.
Back on 26th June with what promises to be a great line up. Don't miss this one.
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ABBCOM Sheffield - 24th April Another packed night in Bar Abbey. I (gareth) was feeling a little rough from a combination of dodgey coronation chicken and drinking too much Guiness at a gig the night before, but I soldiered on like a pro. Funniest part of the evening was the unannounced entry of Robert Mugabe (you had to be there, but oh how we laughed).
Lee Chamberlain was on first. Lee gave me a lift to a gig recently, he has no wing mirror - he's a dangerous man!
Don Barr - first guitar playing comedian to feature at Abbcom. I like.
Bertie Bingham - You wait 8 months for one guitar playing funny guy then two come along at once! Bertie did well for only his third ever gig.
Simon Gunnell - Si had to do a spot on account of two acts pulling out late on. Thank god he did. He was great as always, plus he made no reference to "Roxy Discotech" which is a sign of progress. He'll be MC-ing the night next month.
Tom Walker - Erm.... I try and say something postive about all the acts who perform at abbcom. Tom was confident.
Rod Shepherd Conspiracy Theorist - Bloody Brilliant. Im up against Rod in a comedy competition in May...not much point me turning up maybe.
Back on May 29th with Gunner in charge.
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ABBCOM Sheffield - 27th March
Neither Gareth or Simon could stick around for this one, Gareth had a gig in Mansfield and Simon decided to swan off to Cuba for three weeks. So we left the evening in the very capable hands of the lads from M.U.C.K comedy, Liverpool (and Abbcom favorite Leroy manning the door). The night was another great evening by all accounts and a fair few new faces in the audience. The fellas from Liverpool are all pretty experienced comedians for as far as most "new acts" go, some of which we've had the pleasure of seeing perform before, so it was no surprise the night was a good'un!!
Featuring: Kev Davidson, Eddie Tyrell, Danny Mcloughlin, Andy Rannard, Pete Mccole, and George Cottier.
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ABBCOM Matlock - 6th March 2008
First night at the new Matlock venue (Harveys Bar), on the way over we were a bit confused why we had decided to open a night in a small Derbyshire town rather than the cosmopolitan hub that is Rotherham. When we arrived at Harvey’s Bar we soon remembered why we thought it a good idea, because the venue is lovely!
As expected it was a slow start to Abbcom Matlock (I/Gareth had apparently advertised in all the places where Matlock people never look!!), despite this we still had 25 odd in the audience who saw decent line up.
I was first to dive into the flames of Matlock comedy by chatting a bit with the audience and felt it only fair to bring co-organiser Simon “The Gunner” Gunnell on as the first (always tricky) act. I’ve seen Si’s act so many times but this was a tinkered version that I and most of the audience really enjoyed.
Three acts from Manchester constituted the next chunk. Firstly the lovely Fiona Abernethy (a very keen youth hosteller) I’ve seen Fiona loads of times but always enjoy her stuff. Then came Rob Best who was very good, a little odd, but very good. After a wee break came Rachel Fairburn, another Manchester act who I always like seeing, she’s got some very well written jokes and tiny little hands.
Then came local (ish) Derby comedian Pete Smith. Pete’s great, he used to look a little more like a Viking than he does nowadays and at first I wasn’t sure about his new clean shaven look, but I reckon it’s growing on me now, (this sounds like I love him, I don’t, do I?). Pete tried a few new jokes that seemed just as strong as his usual stuff, I like!! Finally, Leroy, not tired out from his previous nights “extravaganza”, performed his high energy cheeky chappy stuff, always something to be enjoyed.
An enjoyable night all round though we think. Next show, 3rd April. Hopefully a bit of word of mouth and proper advertising will bump the audience up a fraction
Leroy
Rachel Fairburn
Pete Smith
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ABBCOM SHEFFIELD - 28th Feb 2008
Another good night, despite 4 acts pulling out late on (bloody comedians! So unreliable!!) we still managed to pull together a good line up. Audience of around 80 odd again, three of which managed to creep in for free yet they enjoyed themselves so much that by the end of the evening they voluntarily fessed up and handed over necessary coinage (who says Yorkshire folk are tight??). All acts went down well although Barry (Mr Bar Abbey) needs to invest in a new microphone methinks.
Gareth kicked off as usual with some chat and games and such. By looking at the below picture Gareth realised he had a slight mullet. This has now been trimmed.
Tom Roche first up, energetic stuff the crowd enjoyed his opening to the evening. ("quackquack")
Sam Gore. First time we’ve seen Sam, some very good jokes, one of the best acts of the night.
Scott Mccloud. Scott was fantastic - the crowd were lapping up his funny little observations.
Dan Bland. Dan is a very promising comedian with some very clever jokes, you’ll be hearing from him again.
Paul Savage and Rich Wall. Paul and Rich came over very last minute from a previous gig they had in Mansfield to save our bacon (cheers fellas). The crowd enjoyed both acts -Paul had some well written stuff and Rich is extremely confident considering he’s fairly new to this whole shabbang.
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ABBCOM SHEFFIELD - 31st Jan 2008
Wow, what a great show (even if I say so myself), great crowd of over 100 saw a fantastic line up each of whom went down really well.
Gareth kicked off the show with the usual compereing banter/chat/games which was fun (obviously Jeremy Beadle got a mention). We picked a very drunk female mascot in the age old tradition of "best death by arrow" (she went all King Harold/1066 on our ass). She won a bottle of plonk that she really didn’t need but seemed happy enough with it.
Justin Palmer first up, some very good stuff. Strong short punchy gags. The audience really liked it. Easy to see why Justin won the Budweiser Legends of Laughter 2007, im sure he’ll go onto bigger and better and things.
Graham Lee next, Some good material and really did well to push the audience to the edge of what they’d find acceptable but not too far past it.
Gary Skipper was on after the break, never seen him before but had heard good things. Wasn’t disappointed some very good word play jokes and some other stuff so stupid that it’s boarder-line genius (fantastic joke about face from the A Team). The audience were lapping it up.
Rachel Fairburn on next. As she walked on stage you can see people thinking "What? A young, good looking girl?? She’ll be rubbish!!". Rachel doesn’t take long to prove those doubters wrong, some very well written stuff, we enjoyed it.
Finally Michael J Dolan went and did 20 minutes. As soon as he walked on stage he quickly and assertively silenced a couple of hecklers very impressively. He’s a pleasure to watch and the crowd really enjoyed his ramblings.
Finally, a bloke called Lee won the joke competition with a joke about a food processor and Kevin Keegan that was so wrong if I were to post it here I’d probably have the police around pretty sharpish (very funny though). Lee won 4 free tickets to next ABBCOM Sheffield on February 28th.
