“Do I get in for free?”
This was, naturally, the first question I asked on being drafted in as intrepid reporter and iron quilled critic of the YUSU Comedy Night. The answer was of course yes, because this newspaper is not without its perks. The event is generally considered to be a somewhat more low key end to the thinly veiled chaos of Freshers Week. This year the night has boasted an even bigger headline act in the form of Seann Walsh, a regular fixture on TV panel shows such as Mock the Week and 8 out of 10 Cats.
As a man who attended the event last year I could immediately see that Walsh’s brand name recognition appears to have brought in a larger crowd than last year, with Central Hall virtually packed out for the show.
We, the Vision reporting duo comprising of myself and photographer Jack Western, whose role was somewhat mooted by the agency no photography policy during the show, chose our seats in one of the few reasonably empty areas of the hall, somewhere in the outer darkness of row triple z with a side on view of the stage, because Student Media journalists, like the hard kids on the bus, always sit at the back tweeting quietly.
Our compere for the evening was one Charlie Baker, a fellow West Country man after my own heart. There really isn’t, if you ask me, quite enough humor out there about the various tropes and idiosyncrasies of West Country culture.
A fine MC and endearingly chummy crowd pleaser, the other principle cornerstone of Baker’s comedy appears to be his deceptively fine singing voice, which he uses to great effect with sung jokes and musical themed humor.
The next act was Sara Pascoe, who, I’m reliably informed was “in The Thick of It”, I’m not entirely sure who she played, but I thought I recognized her from somewhere.
Pascoe’s comedy style was based on a kind of rambling, slightly manic self-deprecation. There was our first and only piece of vaguely political humor in the form of a joke about Google tax evasion which got that kinf of indignant applause most commonly found amongst Question Time audiences and some sort of joke about Jesus being a biscuit which I missed the start of and thus completely baffled me for its duration.
Meanwhile, our headline act was, from our vantage point repeatedly spotted popping out from behind walls and stalking the walkways above the benches. We questioned whether this was somewhat intentional, with Walsh flashing those of us in the cheap seats with cursory little glimpses of his trademark hairstyle and facial hair, like some sort of strange interactive game of Where’s Wally?
The interval was a mercilessly brief affair, although the drinks prices at the bar were, I was extremely glad to see, not hysterically inflated by the nature of the event, and I was happily willing to part with £2.25 for my Double Vodka and Coke.
Finally, Walsh came bounding in from stage right down the steps, with Baker promptly disappearing into the backstage darkness. From then on it was The Seann Walsh show, the main event.
To commend him, it was a fine performance. It’s massively to his credit that he generated a lot of individual material about York and the University, doing bits about, amongst other things, the lake and the location of the Central Hall railings. The rest of his material was, I’m assured by a friend, the same routine he did when he saw him in a London comedy club recently. However, for the majority of us we were seeing it for the first time, and, well, I don’t know exactly what else to say, it was funny.
Some of the audience participation highlights included Walsh’s berating of YUSU Disabled Office Thomas Ron, resplendent in his Tottenham Hotspur liveries. Walsh noticed Tron’s choice of footballing attire, but remarked that in his case it was likely to be less football player and more playing football manager. A somewhat unwittingly accurate observation, as my knowledge from having lived with Mr Ron last year can testify to his enjoyment of football management simulations. Regardless, Tron seemed a good sport about it, no pun intended.
Another slightly bizarre moment, which I’m convinced could only have happened at this particular University, was what I’m sure is one of the strangest heckles in stand-up history. Towards the end of his bit Walsh asked “how long have I been here for?” followed by, out of the midsts of the crowd, a low drawling voice proclaiming “You’ve always been here”. “Are you trying to convince me I’m a ghost?” came the response from Walsh.
So to conclude then, a good job done all round, with YUSU making significant improvements this year to what was always a decent and original Fresher’s Week event. If you’re still around this time next year and you’re looking to do something different at the tail end of Freshers’ to break up all of the same old nights out on the town, certainly give the Comedy Night a look.