Part 2 of the Northampton Comedy Festival…
But First The Drome (written by Mike)
G’day mate
On the 4th myself and Iain headed to The Picturedrome for another packed out night. This gig sells out nearly every month of the year, and there was a big crowd in again.
It was great to see friend of the Crate Sarah Callaghan, who was visiting from Australia, where she is really building a profile and gigging all over the country. You could see the improvement from previous gigs. Ripping up the middle was Joey Page who we will certainly get over to The Bradlaugh soon. You already know how good Andrew Bird and Tom Toal are so you can guess how they went down.
Bennett & Barron
Monday 9th July we were over at The Lamplighter for another Edinburgh Preview event with Scott Bennett and Sara Barron. It was a full room and a really great crowd for a Monday night. It feels like Scott is really making things click at the minute with his Radio 4 shows, his podcast, the tour shows and social media clips. Scott’s brand new show, ‘Blood Sugar Baby’ which is a lot more personal than fans of his are use to, but what remains is the extremely well written jokes. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I genuinely think people should try and see this show if they get a chance.
Starting the show off was the brilliant Sara Barron who lulled the audience into a false sense of security from the off with a couple of props. A really funny show about trying to be a better mother with great stories and observational material throughout. We were genuinely treated to two excellent preview shows at The Lamp.
Pictured below: Scott Bennett
What Have You Been Up To? (Another one from Mike)
Jon Pearson brought his tour show to town on the 17th at V&B, with excellent support from one of the nicest around in Pete Teckman. The show is 100% crowdwork with no written jokes, so with every show Jon flies by the seat of his pants. Luckily the good people of Northampton always have a story to tell, and with a bit of warming up the crowd, Jon produced a lot of comedy gold. We won’t go into details as some of it is likely to make the Spotify album (keep an ear out for that) but we’re very grateful to everyone who came along and contributed. We know that audience participation is some people’s idea of hell, so it was great to see so many regulars among the crowd.
The Weekend: The Day Before
Most of Friday consisted of all the prep. Making sure the lists are up to date, the emails have been sent to everyone, we’ve got the right people in the right places and of course, dealing with a change in the schedule. We have never done a Weekend event where we haven’t had to deal with last minute changes, I guess it comes with the territory of booking 26 acts over 2 days. We obviously had one act change earlier in the week, which was dealt with pretty swiftly. This other one came on the Friday afternoon. For those of you that know how the Comedy Crate was formed, there was originally a 3rd member, Conor Fitzhenry, who went on to bigger things in the comedy industry. Fortunately he was able to help us out with a fantastic replacement for the Sunday afternoon in Sophie Duker.
Also that Friday we had some amazing weather so once the prep was done, I had the chance to chill out in the garden with a book to try and shut the brain off just for a couple of hours, and then I got some news…
Graeme Scott
It was also on this day we heard that friend of the Crate Graeme Scott had sadly passed away. Along with his cousin Karl, Graeme came to all manner of shows and was a great supporter of us and our friends at The Comedy Cow, Castle Comedy and Rock The Atic. Whether it be comedy, theatre or avidly following The Cobblers, Graeme was always somewhere supporting something. He will be sorely missed by all of his friends in the comedy industry and we thank him for everything, a genuinely lovely guy and all our thoughts are with his family.
We had booked in a night of comedy with Graeme beforehand, as he wanted to raise money for the Centenary Wing in Kettering Hospital where he was receiving his treatment. Graeme was really looking forward to this event, he booked acts that he really enjoyed watching and we’re going to make sure it goes ahead as planned. If you can, please come along and support this show, the acts involved include Terry Alderton, Ninia Benjamin, Rich Wilson, Mark Row, Stephen Owen and Paul Revill. More details on the ticket link below.
The Weekender: Day One
Day one started earlier than usual, we had added a last minute preview at 12:30pm at The Lamplighter with Ryan Mold taking the tally to 26 acts. We met up at the Brad around 10:30am so we could set up the wristband collection area, then it was upstairs with the kit to set up the speakers. After that we wandered over to the Black Prince, checking in with Ollie the sound technician, then finally over the Lamplighter to make sure Ryan was happy with the set up for the day and to set up a roller banner. The one thing this event certainly does is wrack up that step counter!
Obviously I can’t go into detail on all of the shows because unfortunately I couldn’t split myself into 3 and see all of them (However much we’d love to). But what I will say is all the crowds were great, really nice and supportive. All the acts I spoke to said how nice the audiences were, if at times too nice ha!
For me personally, I was especially looking forward to seeing Frankie Monroe and I did manage to watch the full hour, it was a joy! Such an entertaining show and I can’t wait to see more from this act.
We really tried to curate a line up that was strong throughout, offering different types of acts that might be appeal to different senses of humour. Based on the splits between the venues, I’d have to say we manage to achieve that.
Pictured below: Frankie Monroe
The Weekender: Day Two
After a pretty restless night, we were back at the Bradlaugh for 11:30am the next day.
People often ask whether we enjoyed it. It’s such a tricky question to answer because obviously there are elements that are a reminder of why we do it, but there is an awful lot of preparation involved and 2 days later my legs still ache (I’m clearly not fit enough). The real purpose of this event is to give people variety and a good mixture of acts that are established and up and coming names we believe will be big in the future. It’s like building your own adventure by going between venues and seeing loads of different styles. It’s a real taste of the Edinburgh Fringe and it marks our 5th year doing it… That’s a scary thought.
We received some really nice messages and emails afterwards, it’s so nice to hear that everyone had a great time and saw such a wide variety of acts. Same again next year? (I mean we probably will, even if we’re on the fence about it right now).
Pictured below: Sophie Duker
More previews?
Over to Stanwick for an Edinburgh preview night with Scott Bennett and Thomas Green. Scott was performing the other show that he’s taking to Edinburgh called ‘Stuff’. Now we’ve seen both shows Scott will be taking up to the Fringe and wow, he’s going to have a great time! Thomas performed a show he intends to take to Edinburgh next year, due to recently becoming a Dad and not wanted to run off to the festival so early on, have to respect that. But even though Thomas has loads of time to get this show in the right shape, it was bloody hilarious.
The Last Show Of The Northampton Comedy Festival
We ended the Northampton Comedy Festival in the same place as last year, with a show at Cheyne Walk Club.
This time with Jacob Nussey and Markus Birdman. The crowd was a nice mixture of regular faces and new, but again the overall atmosphere was really positive. Jacob got us off to a great start with his show about working for Amazon. Although I’ve now heard it multiple times, the material about work nicknames and Jeff Bezos letting his position go to his head is so good. It will be interesting to see how Jacob develops this show in time for the Fringe in 2025.
Markus delivered another belter, this time focused on the reactions to his BGT performance and dealing with negative comments. Sprinkled with bits on religion and other potentially edgy topics that leave everyone on the edge of their seats until the punchlines land. It’s well constructed and enjoyable to watch.
Pictured below: Markus Birdman
Well That’s A Wrap
11 shows, 49 acts, 9 different venues, and that was just the festival. I took over 900 photos. Which resulted in countless hours of editing.
But in just over 2 months we managed to consistently fill rooms with a lot of laughter. Through the support of everyone involved, Northampton BID, all the audiences, the venues and those that make up the Crate Team. THANK YOU!
Northampton Comedy Festival 2024… completed it mate.
