Scouse Proud

There couldn’t have been a better start to the trip. I’m about to travel by Seacat, co-sponsors of the Liverpool Comedy Festival, when the lady behind the canteen terminal tells me they don’t sell cigarettes here. Blast! A faint cough over my left shoulder comes from a heart-stoppingly beautiful, denim clad blonde with sunglasses the size of a wide-screen TV. “You’re very welcome to a couple of mine,” she sighs, “but I’m afraid I only smoke menthol…”

My poison exactly. It transpires that the young lady’s name is Danielle – “But you can call me Olwen” – and she works as a lap-dancer in a Dublin club every second weekend, returning by ferry where she can grab a couple of hours sleep before re-assuming her regular job as a magician’s assistant. After the four-hour drinks and chat-a-thon that ensues, I’m totally smitten. As the ferry docks, I offer her my card. “If you’re ever in Dublin and you’re in trouble…” “I’d imagine you’d get me into trouble,” she smiles, over-estimating me immeasurably. “Anyway I can’t take the card love, ’cos my husband would kill me,” she says, shattering my heart. I will never forget her. She was wearing a purple satin thong that looked like the Mercedes automobile symbol every time she bent forward. Which she did a lot.

And so to Liverpool. The Liverpool Comedy Festival is an initiative which hopes to engender both an annual quality comedy festival in the style of Kilkenny and Edinburgh and also encourage local comic talent. As well as household names like Johnny Vegas, John Hegley, Ross Noble and mainstream old-school stalwarts such as Tom O’Connor the festival features an open mic competition for 14 to 18-year-old performers in an effort to discover the Liverpudlian equivalent of Bill Hicks.

I’m here to shadow a triumvirate of Irish comics who have been invited to stage two Irish special nights at two separate clubs in the city. Compere Eddie Bannon is an experienced stand-up who regularly appears at The International Bar’s Monday night Improv, and has also staged a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Neil Delamere has most recently won the RTE New Comedy Award and regularly gigs countrywide in Ireland with the occasional foray to the UK and Europe. Dara O’Briain is perhaps best known to the general public for the quiz show Family Affair which he presented with considerable aplomb for RTE TV.

These three are to play in the Casa Bar on Tuesday night. Brendan Riley, my guide for the evening and a well-known Liverpool comic, informs me that the venue was purchased by a co-op including a group of ex-dockers after the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher attempted to liquidate the city’s historical docks and shipping industry. The bar is festooned with plaques from politicians, community groups, entertainers and artists in support of the striking dockers. Brendan tells me that the night before at the Casa, where he was performing his Comedy Sushi show, one Ricky Tomlinson of Brookside and The Royle Family fame dropped in to check out the venue.

Since the place has not had a history of hosting comedy events before the festival, nerves are evident among the promoters and comedians as 8pm approaches. Although the acts hide their anxiety better than the festival organisers and the clubs manager, suddenly the idea seems crazy. An Irish comedy night? On a Tuesday? In a club where comedy is a new venture? When there’s at least six other festival events happening at the same time? Jesus, they must have been mad!

But by eight o’clock the pub at the front of the venue is full, and people gradually start to trickle in. By 8.15 the relief is palpable as extra seats are brought in to accommodate late-comers. Now it’s up to the Irish.

Eddie Bannon is a master MC, but tonight he’s going to have his work cut out. A familiar face on the Irish circuit, it becomes quickly apparent that he’s going to have to teach his audience who are slightly older and perhaps a little more conservative than he’s used to, exactly what’s expected of them. Yes it’s OK to respond to questions, no we won’t ridicule you and yes we need you to laugh. Finally, a spot-on routine about exercise machines – “Why do we need walking machines, why not just…walk?” – strikes a chord and Eddie’s ready to bring on his opening act.

Neil Delamere has been practising stand-up for a little less than two years, but has already built up a considerable following helped by his 2001 RTE award. Much of his material tonight revolves around his Co. Offaly background and tales of growing up in rural Ireland. Unfortunately, his wry delivery and quirky material seem to confuse the crowd. He glances at his watch before a throwaway line – “My town only had one policeman so he couldn’t do that ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ routine… He was more “Nice enough, but can be a bit of a prick…” – gives him the round of applause he needs and he sails through the rest of his set. His discovery of a Fermanagh man in the front row leads to an audience participation sing-a-long that Muppet Show fans can work out for themselves.

Dara O’Briain has spent most of 2001-2 touring in Australia and the UK, and living and writing in London. Tonight’s show is a preview of his Edinburgh offering for 2002 and he’s suffering from a lack of feedback from the crowd. They’re getting it, they’re just not very loud about it. It doesn’t bother O’Briain. Although on television he’s understated and polite to the point of turning obsequiousness into an art form, on stage he’s a motor-mouth tour-de-force. While it would be lazy to include too much of his gags here, a routine about his recently deceased centagenarian grandmother, who as a young girl was a member of Cumann Na mBan, produces shrieks of laughter from the English audiences. “Her coffin was draped with the tricolour,” he informs us, “which was cool because the World Cup was on and during the procession every house had a flag displayed. She would have been thrilled.” Further routines include material about his sojourns in foreign climes and his inability to indulge in sport of any kind, and by the end of his set it seems the audience have finally worked out what’s going on. It’s just a laugh, la. On tonight’s performance O’Briain might just be worth a flutter for a Perrier nomination. If you were a betting man.

Although deadlines prevented a review of Owen O’Neill’s one-man play My Son The Footballer, it’s likely that the Northern Irishman is back on live form after an overlong absence. Hopefully we’ll see him back on this side of the water soon.

Organisers, artists and audiences all seem convinced that The Liverpool Comedy Festival is here to stay and the Irish contingent can take some of the credit for the success of the 2002 event. Lessons learned, laughs enjoyed, let’s look forward to Liverpool 2003.