Left my work christmas meal pretty promptly and made it to Folkestone West in time for the train I had planned. Left the car in the car park and sorted out overnight parking via an automated phone system. Saved me valuable minutes instead of trying to find street parking near the station, but cost me cash money.
Met Jeff at The Phoenix, didn't seem a nice bar but was heaving with city office party types, nowhere is going to seem like a nice venue in those circumstances. A pint, then in to HoHo Theatre...
SURPRISING venue. With the calibre of the bill, and the other shows that were lined up for this month I thought it'd be a bit bigger. Very Edinburgh really, all feeling a bit temporary and edgy, but just right. A small bar, but with some good bottled beers on the go, then we can go downstairs to the actual venue. Amazing faded grandeur of the lower levels of this building, a huge wrought iron lift like from the hotel in Interview With The Vampire, looked mostly derelict but glamourous at the same time. The room the comedy was in was surprisingly small, maybe 150 capacity, and absolutely falling apart.
Compere (and organiser I think) was Bob Slayer, a bad santa with an elf co-host, they say they were aiming to set the bar low to make the acts look good, I'll let them have that one...
First on was Harry Hill. First on the bill! First time I'd seen him, this was fast paced wackiness, lots of fun. Slightly self mocking about the video clips show he does the voice over for which was great too.
Next up good physical comedy from Spencer Jones. This was the only one on the bill I didn't know but was good. Lots of messing about with funny voices and props.
Can't remember if it was Let Luce or Henning Wehn next, but either way both were great and both did parts of the same shows we'd seen at Edinburgh. So Henning talked about mortgages mostly but with some funny new stuff about not being a migrant, because you're only a migrant if you go somewhere better. Let Luce were Karen and Peter, two characters from their Sea Men show, but this time they had an actual video message from Michelle Gayle to augment the show.
Stewart Lee is always great. Even when he's doing mostly the same material that we have seen recently (twice this year I think) it's mostly bounced off the crowd so it changes quite a lot, but it still sounds fresh. Really good.
Walked a lot of the way back to Stoke Newington through Dalston, which has changed a lot since I was last there. All the old shops and things now seem to be trendy bars.
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone. Wed + dad to two, I am a full-stack web engineer, + I do js / Node, some ruby, other languages ect ect. I like pubbing, parkrun, eating, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, tree stuff, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.