I’m a little naive. When I first read that the MICF runs a show called Best of British with comedic heavyweights Jimmy Carr and Sarah Millican in the line-up, I knew I had to go. If I’m not wrong, the line-up changes every show so the night’s acts are never announced. With some of my favourites having performed, my expectations going in were (I suspect) a tad too high.
Best of British has been a part of the MICF’s lineup for nearly 20 years. It’s a one hour long taster of four different comics from across Great Britain and, as comic Rory O’Hanlon pointed out, Ireland. The venue was the Exford Hotel, a 171-year-old pub at the corner of Russell Street and Chinatown. It’s hard to miss, with its red-brick walls and dramatic band of emerald paint wrapping above the stained glass windows of the building.
Reaching with a couple of minutes to spare meant that the room was almost entirely full. Can you guess which two rows were completely empty? Those right at the back and those right at the front, with the rows curving from the front of the stage to almost perpendicular to it. I turned to my friend, Ginny, and grimaced, knowing which way we would have to go.
She laughed, “I’ll only sit at the front if we’re all the way to the side.”
Lucky for us, there were a couple of seats we’d missed one row behind. A middle-aged woman in the seats behind took one look at me.
“Hey, you!” she bellowed, pointing to the seat in front of her, “This is your seat, okay? You’re so tall, you’ll hide me!”
(For context, I’m 5’10”.)
As it turned out, there was no need to hide.
The night started with emcee, Dan Willis, introducing the show and explaining its origin. His energy and enthusiasm were infectious, with his chatty delivery and gentle chiding of tardy audience members adding to the suspense. I have a strong feeling he tends to give the same speech nightly but, clearly, practice has made perfect. He strongly advised the audience not to heckle, joyously warning us that only a handful of the numerous heckles he’d witnessed had been funny.
The first act was Irish comic, Rory O’Hanlon. His set — a familiar routine about Ireland, the Irish and being red-haired and sunburnt — was smooth, if a little dull. O’Hanlon’s strengths lay in his delivery and timing. His lively and cheerful demeanour worked as the perfect start to the fast paced night. His sense of comedic timing was perfect, with each zinger and quip delivered right on cue. O’Hanlon’s reliance on accents however grew weary, with his not-entirely-convincing impressions ranging from Adelaide to Belfast. I do enjoy a good impression, but they only work when flawless. While I appreciated O’Hanlon’s act, I don’t think he’s yet managed to find something unique which would distinguish him from other comedians.
Next up was English comedian, Maureen Younger, with her keen awareness of her position as a middle-aged, female comic being a central theme of her set. Her acerbic wit and quick delivery were brilliant, with her perceptive takes on the sexual and romantic lives of women being a highlight of her performance. Her crowd-work was a strength, and it was pretty funny when she pointed to me and Ginny, as examples of younger women, during a larger joke about the generational depilation or non depilation of “minges”. I did feel however that her set suffered from her overuse of self-deprecation. Her appearance and age were often the punchline of her jokes, and she followed stories about the stagnancy of her dating life with the empty refrain: “not all of these are jokes”. Whilst it was funny at first, it began to eventually feel like I was laughing at her and not with her, something I didn’t enjoy.
The same can be said for the following act, Jonny Pelham, whose act quickly jumped into joking about his facial appearance as the result of being born with a cleft palate. I felt that the wit of his material was undermined by the large number of his jokes centred around he looked. With a darker sensibility than the previous comics, his act added a bit of necessary edge to his act and the night as a whole.
One of the highlights of the evening for me was his exchange with the trio of middle-aged vodka sipping women sitting in the front row. In the midst of a clever story about his fit-bit, he called out the three women who’d been whispering to each other loud enough for him to hear. When asked what they were whispering about, they revealed that one of them had also had a fit-bit! His little repartee with them as he pointed out the ridiculousness of feeling special about owning a very popular product was endearing.
The night ended with veteran comic, Ian Stone. He entered the stage bouncing off of jokes told by the previous acts, tying the whole show together nicely. Political and perceptive— his jokes ranged from the idiocy of conspiracy theories about Chinese surveillance to Trump’s connection to Epstein. His act felt the most natural, with his set feeling more like a conversation with the audience than a rehearsed set he’d performed before. If I were to recommend any comedians from the night, Stone would be my first pick.
Best of British made for a fun night. The comedians were skilled, with their enthusiasm and delivery making for an entertaining show. But the sets lacked novelty or surprise, so of all the shows running at the MICF, I’m not sure it’s the one I would necessarily pick. It’s a show packed with laughs, certainly, but it’s also the night of stand-up you would get on most nights out. This is not the kind of comedy that would ever make you want to hide.