The Best of Scottish Comedy Review

3/5

The Best of Scottish Comedy is a monthly night held at The Stand showcasing some of the finest talent emerging north of the border. An outlet for rising comedians, it saw the first steps of big household names such as Frankie Boyle and Kevin Bridges and provides an ever changing mix of four different comedians and a compère.

This month saw pintsized ex-lawyer Susan Calman taking on the role of compère, where she roused the audience and introduced the acts while adding a comic flair of her own.

Opening the night’s proceedings, Chris Forbes towered over Calman as he entered the stage. Combining a mix of jokes and lurid anecdotes it was a controversial start, but one that the audience welcomed gladly and enjoyed.

Noting his location, it seemed only fitting that comedian Garry Dobson felt it necessary to mention that, despite his rather unscottish sounding surname, the spelling of his first name made up for this. Evidently quite new on the comedy circuit his delivery came across as nervous and it can be frustrating when new comics repeatedly mention that they are not real comedians.

By far the youngest of the night’s performers, Daniel Sloss is only 20. However, with over four years experience performing on TV, writing for Frankie Boyle and having sell out shows at the Fringe, his confidence and knowledge of the techniques and composition of comedy is admirable. From the fact that he looks like the kid from Home Alone, to his ease at dealing with taboo subjects, he easily stole the show.

The show finished with Vladimir MacTavish, who looks like a cross between Oor Wullie and Rod Stewart, yet I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the choice of headline act. Admittedly he was the oldest and looked as though he had been around a bit, but this shouldn’t have constituted the decision to make him end the evening.

His jokes were average at best, his references to Scottish culture were only intelligble to those members of the audience who were clued up on their Scottish knowledge and his closing sketch of what happens when you agree to go out for a drink with a colleague after work came across as an unfunny means to get free drinks from the bar. I’m not sure he was successful.

Taken from The Student, published Tue Nov 30th 2010.