Review: Have I Got News for York

ComedySoc put on a captivating and highly enjoyable Have I Got News for York on Wednesday evening as York Tories’ Dan Hawkridge went head to head with Labour’s Nick Button. But the team captains stole the show with Mungo Tatton-Brown, using his lemon pie, expertly physicalising his take on current affairs and the night’s stand-out comic Tom Keefe impressing with his remarkably quick one-liners.

We were welcomed to a menagerie of props and musical instruments decorating the rather enigmatic setting, which just three hours before had played host to a politics lecture. But political discussion and debate was all set to continue,  after the Shambles – York’s improvised comedy group – warmed up the audience with games and songs. One of the aspects of their popularity is that they clearly feel their shows aren’t just about them, and understand the need for variety and freshness. They prove it with the level of audience interaction and their off-the-cuff ability to spin some random responses into a frenetic performance.

We got going with some rather brutal attacks on YUSU sabbatical officers, with Graeme Osborn’s entire Facebook photo collection finding its way into a video of “Who am I?” and Kallum Taylor’s dress sense the subject of much mockery. Bob Hughes, meanwhile, managed to escape damage with his only mention coming in the metaphorical form of a particularly gorgeous hamster.

With Hawkridge expertly illustrating just how up to date he is with campus news by bringing up Vision’s exclusive story ‘Feeling porny?’, Nick Button then managed to list, in order, the top 10 sites students visited last term. Well, not quite, but he was admirably knowledgeable on the subject. The two political heavyweights, disappointingly, seemed to get on too well with each other and seldom clashed, but they did sportingly use their own political swayings for the occasional quips. “We’ll be able to give you our policy in another ten thousand years,” said Button, while Hawkridge told of the Tories’ solution to the recent dramatic fall in potato supplies (no, I don’t know why that was discussed either): “Our decision would be to just slash farmers’ funding even more.”

But the night quickly turned into a battle of wit between the two team captains; as the more Tatton-Brown bawled, the more his fans roared with delight. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the face of modern Tory Britain!” he wailed, pointing at his pie, to more guffaws. No one took him that seriously, but despite appearing too jovial, silly and posh to cut it as ‘cool’, he certainly serves the invaluable function of reflecting that part of ourselves we want to laugh at more: prone to embarrassment, childish behaviour and schmaltzy emotion.

Keefe, on the other hand, captivated the audience with his alertness, quick thinking and ‘lefty’ perspective, while the polished and authoritative Tom Kelsey often went off-script and did so in style; with his more natural, un-rehearsed puns and gags proving to be the funniest. Never flummoxed and capable of being scathing in such an engagingly friendly way, Kelsey hosted a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

At the end of the night, we left with some sour taste from the harsh victimisation of some BNOCs – but overall a hearty fill of humour pie.

You can watch the full show here.