Winner of ITV's 'Show Me the Funny' and walking hug-factory Patrick Monahan was kind enough to pop into the Looking Glass for an hour or so last night, to do exactly what he does best - mucking around with the audience. The judges on comedy's version of the X-Factor tried their best to make him stand still and deliver jokes instead of actually being himself, but clearly they failed (thankfully).
After dashing up from London for the gig, Monahan arrived at the Looking Glass during the interval to cheers, and treated us to a hugging workshop, lashings of ad-libbing and audience banter, and a small amount of material about Bear Grylls carrying the Olympic torch and the best costume in which to run a marathon.
He then dashed off to get the last train back to London, narrowly missing out on his target of hugging everyone in the room before he left. It was a fairly brief set, but it was enough to remind us why he's so popular on the circuit and why he won 'Show Me the Funny' despite the judges' best efforts to clip his comedy wings.
Also appearing on the night were Ian Crawford, a well-crafted character act with some hilariously daft safety advice about cutlery; and South African Brummie-convert Albert Smith, who was charming enough to get away with his treading-a-thin-line racial material and frequent references to his West Midlands home, although one couldn't help wondering how well the Brum stuff would go down outside the Midlands. The whole affair was compered in the usual assured style by Ship of Fools founder Alan Seaman.
The next Ship of Fools night is Writers Stand Up (part of the 'Everybody's Reading' festival) on Wednesday 3rd October at the Exchange Bar.
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