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| July 11, 2013 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
The critical list: more hot tickets Cambridge Comedy Festival ᔡ David Trent: This Is All I Have, Cambridge Comedy Festival, Cambridge Junction, Thursday, July 18, at 7.30pm. Tickets £10.50 from (01223) 511511 or www.junction.co.uk
David Trent I
F you research comedian David Trent, it’s pretty tricky. There’s the odd garbled review, an official website heavy with CAPITAL LETTERS. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. Happily there are quite a lot of YouTube videos, but interviews? Not so much. I had hoped that, being a Cambridgebased teacher, David might want to meet, but as tech heavy as he is in his comedy (he uses projectors, video clips and PowerPoint to maximum, cheek wobbling effect), it’s no wonder he preferred to chat over email instead. Here are the rather spiky results: What is This Is All I Have about? What should people expect? THIS IS ALL I HAVE is about making an audience of people laugh. People should be expecting a work in progress show that currently has 11 high quality routines which play out over an average running time of 54 minutes and 28 seconds. I’ve Googled you; you seem to like talking about yourself in the third person: why is that? David Trent has no idea what you’re talking about. He just Googled himself and saw absolutely zero evidence to support
this assertion. He wrote this himself. What did you do before PowerPoint? Do you think you could have become a comedian without it? Impossible. Before Powerpoint I just sat around wishing that someone would invent it. That’s why I didn’t even consider comedy until Windows had been invented. What did you do before Word? Could you have become a journalist without it? Your website says that last year you went to Edinburgh and “smashed the living **** out of it”. Are you planning to do the same again this year? My website does say that. You neglect to point out that it also states how I played nightly in a venue which held 56 people. Context is everything. What/who makes you laugh and why? Yesterday I laughed for about an hour at Richard Dawkins’ “Mutation of the Mind” on YouTube. I am laughing now thinking about it. I also laugh at Parks and Recreation. It is a TV show about the parks and recreation department of a town called Pawnee and concerns mainly humour based around the everyday situations of running a parks and recreation government department which may be where Parks and Recreation gets the name Parks and Recreation from. Who is your comic idol? Chris Morris. What are you most proud of? I make the most delicious mung dal with green chilli that you have ever tasted. What do you think of the Cambridge comedy scene? There are two comedy scenes in Cambridge, there’s the university scene and then there’s nothing else. What have you got lined up next? Upon completion of this interview I am going directly to John Lewis to buy my daughter some wellington boots.
‘Before Powerpoint I just sat around wishing that someone would invent it’
Festival top picks Funny Punts Granta Boat & Punt Co, Newnham Road, Tuesday, July 16, to Sunday, July 21, at 6.30pm and 7.45pm, £10 Former News columnist and standup Hannah Dunleavy will be taking to the water for an alternative tour of Cambridge shall we say . . . expect laughs, anecdotes and hopefully no falling in.
Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans: Joy and Wonder Cambridge Junction, J3, Thursday, July 18, at 9pm, £8.50
The comedy duo (he of the Longest Hug ever – officially, the Guinness Book of Records team say so, she a previous Edinburgh Award nominee), use improv, songs and chat as part of their Sunday Assembly show.
Seann Walsh Cambridge Junction, J2, Saturday, July 20, at 9pm, £10.50. Curly haired Walsh is on the up with an hour of “selfdeprecating silliness” and
All tickets from (01223) 511511 or www.junction.co.uk proof that he’s the Lie-in King. Expect LOLs aplenty.
Simon Munnery: Fylm Cambridge Junction, J2, Friday, July 19 at 9pm, £8.50. An imaginative blur of live gags, screens and sketches, projected and analysed for your entertainment. And the guy’s won quite a few awards so we’re prepared for great things.
Andrew Maxwell: Banana Kingdom Cambridge Junction, J2, Thursday, July 18 at 9pm, £10.50. The Live at the Apollo regular is talented at “making shrewd, balanced and very funny political observations” – so says his website. Better find LAUGH STORIES: From left, out if it’s Andrew Maxwell, Seann true. Walsh and Hannah Dunleavy
Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | July 11, 2013 | 23
CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE EVENTS CALENDAR – AND ADD YOUR OWN EVENTS – AT CAMBRIDGE-NEWS.CO.UK/WHATSON
Dylan Moran
T
HE rather wonderful, super shambolic Black Books legend Dylan Moran is headlining Cambridge Comedy Festival’s ‘Best of’ gala show at the Corn Exchange. It’s definitely set to be the highlight of the festival. Oh yes. The Irish comic, armed with his signature rambling style and cigarette-ravaged voice, will tackle the nightmares of kids, relationships, growing old and religion. Currently touring with his latest show, Yeah, Yeah, in the US, we caught up with the scruffy-haired comedian for a slightly bizarre email chat: Who or what makes you laugh and why? Children make me laugh; telling the truth as though it weren’t considered terribly poor taste. Politicians make me laugh when they second guess the entity they call ‘the public’. Writers make me laugh, enjoying the play of their gifts – Kevin Barry is a terrific Irish short story writer and novelist. And, of course, people you dislike falling down the stairs. And who or what do you not find funny? What is not funny is what is not truly alive. The inert, the ersatz, the kitsch offered up as diversion, it is everywhere, yet easily avoided – do something else, start a new conversation elsewhere. How would you describe Yeah,Yeah? TimeOut Chicago called it “finely tuned and intoxicatingly slapdash” – is that accurate? I would say it is what I’m doing now – no idea what that may be. Do you find touring a challenge? No. There’s a talented tour manager, a thing that flies or drives, peanuts – then a stage.
YEAH, YEAH: Dylan Moran; inset, with Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey in TV sitcom Black Books
‘Americans and the British are funhouse reflections of each other; US positivity is a religion, just as scepticism is sacred in Britain’
ᔡ Dylan Moran, Cambridge Comedy Festival, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Friday, July 19, at 8.30pm. Tickets £15 from (01223) 357851 or www.cornex.co.uk
It’s not warfare, or being a nurse on the NHS. How have you found American and British audiences differ? Americans and the British are funhouse reflections of each other; US positivity is a religion, just as scepticism is sacred in Britain. What do you love about being on stage? New stuff. The feel of my fabulous gowns clinging to my hips. What do you think you’d be doing now if you hadn’t become a comedian? I’d be doing more questionnaires. What are you most proud of? My firm breasts, dance moves and the respect I get from snakes. Do you ever get sick of being asked to revive Black Books? I don’t mind. Do you have any fond memories of visiting Cambridge? I once spent a good part of an evening on a bouncy castle drinking champagne. It seemed wise at the time. Every limb and sinew disagreed for a long time afterwards. Glenn Wool and Jo Caulfield will be the support acts at the gala night at the Cambridge Comedy Festival. Have you come across them before? Mr Wool I don’t know. Jo, I remember as being kind, quick and very good on stage. What have you got planned next? I’m about to release my own range of male lingerie and root-vegetable-based perfumes for the autumn season. ella.walker @cambridge-news.co.uk