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After something of a comedy night drought last term, Dan Nightingale returned to compère the first of the smaller YUSU comedy nights of the year, showcasing the talents of Joe Lycett, Tim Bradbury and Matt Reed in the all-new Courtyard bar.
This first event was free entry, with YUSU continuing to promote both their newly established bar, and the comedy nights as a regular fixture. Unsurprisingly it proved to be very popular.
Dan Nightingale warmed up the show nicely, looking more at home than ever as compère, having got used to dealing with the often less-than-enthusiastic audience responses of York students.
First up was Joe Lycett, a 20-year-old student comedian from Manchester University, bringing with him an expressive and often theatrical performance. His material contained a lot of witty observations, but unfortunately the background noise meant that a lot of jokes were only partially heard, which seemed to interrupt the flow of his act, and not give him the reaction he deserved. Despite this, he did manage to impressively repel a heckle.
Mancunian Tim Bradbury followed, and lowered the tone of the humour, which went down very well with the audience! His act contained a fair few chav jokes, as well as some impressive beatboxing/singing, and an incredible kid’s voice (known as lil’ Tim).
Matt Reed provided the headline act in the second half of the show. Describing himself as looking like “Jesus on crack”, his material ran in a similar vein to Tim Bradbury. His confidence on stage and slightly “cheeky” persona allowed him to successfully dare the crowd to indulge him in his less-than-PC jokes. He definitely came off as the most popular act of the night. (Check out some of his material at the Comedy Store below).
As good as The Courtyard is as a bar, I’m not entirely convinced that it would be the best location to host the comedy nights. The L-shape prevents half the people in there from actually being able to see the performance area, and the proximity of the bar area means there is a lot of ambient noise. Nevertheless, the evening proved to be thoroughly entertaining, and here’s looking forward to the next one, which will be on Monday of week 5.
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