Compere for this event was curly haired northerner Jon Richardson. What can I say about him? He was faultless throughout the evening, immediately breaking the ice with the crowd and delivering laugh after laugh. He was on the attack from the offset, verbally sparring with individuals, but in a good-natured way which made the audience feel relaxed from the start.  | | Jon Richardson |
No matter what was thrown at him, he had an immediate witty response with perfect timing and delivery, showing a man well-able to think on his feet. In particular, there was one discourse with a heckler who was adamant that Bangor was not in North Wales, but in Liverpool. This was later returned to in the show with hilarious effect, as the heckler once again tried to outwit Jon with disastrous (for him) consequences. Another heckler earned the name Moody Steve, which was made funnier by the fact that despite this being a guess on Jon's part, he was actually called Steve, prompting more hilarious ad-libbing. Judging by tonight's show, I'd suggest this man has a great comedy future ahead of him. Dean BurnettDean Burnett was up next. He announced himself as South Wales' premier comedy neuropsychologist. I guess there isn't much competition as to be perfectly honest, his material is decidedly patchy.  | | Dean Burnett |
From the offset, he exuded an air of nervousness, appearing uncomfortable playing to a packed-out theatre. He advised us that his first job following graduation was in a medical school embalming corpses, where bantering with his clients was discouraged. However, I expect if he had given it a go, he would have received a similar reception as he did tonight. There was material about how he is startled by tall buildings and homophobia in his home town. He is engaged to be married, but is banned from planning the wedding - he wants Eye of the Tiger as a hymn, and a wedding cactus rather than flowers to make catching the bouquet more interesting. Although this wasn't the best act I've seen, he has only been performing for about a year, so there is much scope for improvement. Hal CruttendenHal is a seasoned performer, having played all over the world, as well as being a prolific comedy writer and bit-part actor. From the off, he had people virtually rolling in the aisles with laughter. He described himself as having a posh, camp voice which sounds like Tony Blair, though I felt he sounded more like Rory Bremner mimicking Tony Blair - he even looked slightly like him.  | | Hal Cruttendon |
His material was well-observed, including the hilarious routine about heterosexual and homosexual stereotyping, discussing how as he sounded camp and acted slightly effeminate, often people assume he is gay, which he finds offensive (to gay people). He then went on to discuss marriage, the obnoxiousness of traditional weddings and how his six-year marriage is going down the toilet. He argues incessantly with his protestant Northern Irish wife, to such an extent that they should have their own channel on Sky Sports. Although she once beat him at Scrabble three years ago, she still marches round the house on the anniversary of that victory! Wes PackerThe penultimate act was Wes Packer, the second Welshman of the evening. This self-deprecating comedian admittedly likes Wells and the surrounding countryside, as, in particular, it has the potential for good dogging country! He went speed-dating, and found it soul-destroying to be turned down by 24 women in one night. He talked about his lack of self respect, falling in love with a transsexual who looked like Dannii Minogue, as well as someone trying to sleep with his wife behind his back. A discourse about cigarette-smoking highlighted how, as he smokes 40 a day, of which £3.50 from each packet goes to the treasury, he should have preferential treatment from the NHS, if not a platinum membership card to get emergency treatment in any A&E department in the UK. This is another young comic, who has apparently only been performing for a year. With a bit of fine-tuning of his material, I think he could do well in future. And so to the final act of the evening - Simon Pegg. Simon PeggSimon had taken an hour-or-so off from the hectic filming schedule in and around Wells of his new movie Hot Fuzz - the tale of a London police officer relocated to the sleepy imaginary Somerset village of Sandford, where nasty things start happening. I was a little dubious that he would actually turn up for the evening's show, because last Thursday he was observed in Wells market place being shot by a vicar. He appeared to have made a miraculous recovery, however, and bounded on stage full of enthusiasm, predictably wearing a Star Wars T-shirt, and looking a bit battered from being thrown through plate glass windows during the day.  | | Simon Pegg |
His presence was the reason the theatre was totally packed out. Judging by the rapturous reception he received, I expect he would have been able to fill the venue if it had been advertised that he'd be vacuuming the foyer for 20 minutes at the end of the show, rather than headlining the gig. Tonight's performance was only Simon's second standup routine in eight years, and to be perfectly honest this did show. His material was as rusty as his wife's sheriff's badge, to which a little too much attention was paid in his overtly scatological routine. In fact, he stated that the only reason he married her was because he wanted her ring on his finger. His on-screen comedy material has in its own right been highly variable, from the excellent Shaun of the Dead, and the superlative Spaced sitcom, to the decidedly patchy Hippies and almost unwatchable cringeworthy Big Train, so I was expecting this to be less than a perfect act. Indeed, there was very little substance at all. His audience banter was not funny, and he tried an alleged eight-year-old joke from his old routine about Geri leaving the Spice Girls, before deciding to repeat his groom's speech from his wedding. He enjoys being married as he was shy and not good at chatting up girls, as outlined by the tale of when he approached a girl in a bar, tapped her on the shoulder and delivered the following chat up line: "Excuse me, did you bruise your wings when you fell from heaven?" Then she turned round, and he realised she'd landed on her face! Global warming was tackled as well as predictive texting, in particular the T9 dictionary which refuses to accept the existence of some (swear) words. Also a trip to Australia incorporating a fling with a koala (he had to get rid of her for being a bit clingy), and the likelihood of being eaten by a shark while surfing, being less than being killed by a drunk driver. He ad-libbed a piece about Big Brother (a group of feckless, desperate people offering themselves up in front of a nation of hatred-fuelled people in the vain hope of selling an exercise video at the end of it), before finishing with a brief piece about the power and magic of swear words. To be brutally honest, if Simon had been an unknown comic he would have fallen flat, as he struggled to make five minutes of quality material last 20. Although in his defence, he did admit that although he had been asked to do this show three months ago, he had paid little thought to it since. | 
