Comedy review: The Thursday Show, The Stand

Compere Bruce Devlin spreads the rudeness around to warm up a very busy room – the Thursday of the Easter weekend being self-evidently Friday night for quite a few of those present.

Winning round a potentially tricky, certainly tipsy room, Davey Connor is working out a really good routine. It’s not quite there yet, but the delivery and stage presence are good, and bring the audience along by way of Maryhill, trainers, care homes and the Metro.

After the first interval, Fern Brady takes the stage and, after winning the crowd over with her alleged likeness to Boy George, delivers a short, slightly filthy but mostly entertaining set.

American comic, activist, writer and satirist Lee Camp has had comparisons to the likes of Bill Hicks, which begged the question, why wasn’t he headlining? A few minutes in, and it becomes apparent. While he is clearly a clever and indeed funny guy – do look up his written work and website, well worth a read – he is not a great stand-up and comparisons to Hicks or even Mark Thomas are verging on unfathomable.

Might just be the constraints of a 25-minute set, but the opinion pieces felt preachy, the comedy underdeveloped and, actually, the “edgy” bits were kind of familiar: the notion that Jesus may not have been a white guy is a fact challenging to some people in the American Midwest has been done before and better.

One-time Johnny Vegas co-star Tony Burgess revels in dated references and drug culture, taunting the youngsters down the front with assorted gags about rave, salt and shake crisps and slippers which are unashamedly of their time.

Burgess’ set is a little uneven, with a few gags which were duff, distasteful or both. Overall they were mostly on the money and got plenty of laughs. In fact, that’s a pretty fair summation of the show.