David Cross And Friends

Welcome to the 100 Club. The Clash! The Sex Pistols! Punk rock! And, erm… stand-up comedy? Why, yes indeed.

In a slightly surprising turn of events, David Cross himself kicks off the evening’s entertainment in spite of his ostensible role as the headline act. Not that it really matters, though: whether main event or sporadic MC, Cross is never less than engaging and thought-provoking – to say nothing of fucking hilarious – whenever he’s handed a microphone, a stage and an audience. He starts by using a recent news story about a pair of homosexual flamingos in London Zoo to prove that “these birds are officially more evolved than Americans” and returns to the centre of the action in between each of the following sets. Some of the material he deploys will be familiar to those of his acolytes who use YouTube as a method of keeping tabs on his latest work, and if you’ve seen his Comedy Central Presents show then you’ll already know the story involving Tampa Bay, Busch Gardens and an elephant with a full bladder; fortunately, however, familiarity has done nothing to lessen the impact of these riffs.

If you’ve ever wondered what America’s best modern-day comedian thinks of a porno film entitled My Ass is Haunted, or if you yearn to know more about David Cross’s (decidedly unhealthy) relationship with his new dog, you won’t want to miss this rare visit to the UK from the man best known to many Britons as Tobias ‘Analrapist’ Fünke from Arrested Development.

Todd Barry, who follows Cross’ opening set, is one of those people who was born to perform stand-up comedy; at least, it’s hard to imagine the dry and droll American doing anything else with his time. Barry, an alumnus of Freak Show and Wonder Showzen who also landed the coveted role of ‘Ordinary Guy’ in an episode of Sex and the City, possesses the rare gift of being able wring gut-achingly funny humour from self-deprecation. So many of today’s ‘comedians’ – Russell Brand, anyone? – try to walk a similar path and come across as self-involved, shrill and downright irritating; Barry, who once built an entire one-man show around a negative review of a chat-show appearance which he’d read online, avoids such pitfalls by never descending into “Woe-is-me” whining or taking himself too seriously.

Recounting the time an audience member complained to the venue that his voice was too monotonous – “I didn’t even know you _could complain about that!”_ – and pontificating about the dubious state of the club’s toilets, Barry belies any notion that being first on the bill automatically means you’re somehow inferior to those who are scheduled to tread the boards later in the evening. After an all-too-short stint in the spotlight, he takes his leave and yields the microphone to Kristen Schaal. Schaal, another former Freak Show star, proceeds to deliver perhaps the oddest set of the evening, proving herself to be something of a comedic Joanna Newsom with a cutesy voice and manner which appear to divide the crowd down the middle. Personally, I thought she was great, even managing to surmount my long-held distaste for prop comedy with a bit involving an empty bird-cage, a telephone and a brief dance routine. Yes, you had to be there.

Jimmy Carr is tonight’s special guest, and he takes to the stage to a hero’s welcome from the assembled throng. If you’ve ever seen a video of Carr’s stand-up, you’ll know exactly what to expect: quick-fire quips and deadpan one-liners, almost all of which are laced with enough un-PC bile to make the average Daily Mail reader physically ill. Whether inviting us to pitch in for his latest money-making scheme (“Twin Towers Jenga!”) or complaining about the warning label on his bottle of Viagra (“Keep away from children? Who has difficulty maintaining an erection in the presence of a child, anyway?”), his whirlwind set leaves at least 95% of the crowd in stitches. I’ll admit to never having ‘got’ Carr before, perceiving his smug posturing as tedious and affected, but in short doses – his performance tonight can’t have lasted for more than twenty minutes – he is utterly hilarious.

The final set of the night comes from Eugene Mirman, a star of the ‘Comedians of Comedy’ tour and – like Cross himself – an adopted New Yorker. To call Mirman ‘laconic’ would be to grossly understate the situation, but he more than makes up for his meandering and unfocused delivery with an abundance of charm and a mile-wide self-deprecating streak. Imagine Boris Johnson’s guest appearances on Have I Got News for You, minus the foppish Middle England Tory bumbling, and you’re getting somewhere close. Mirman’s gleeful lampooning of America’s religious Right – during which he plays an audio recording of a phone-call between himself and a homophobic Christian zealot – is superb, as is his anecdote concerning a spurious speeding-ticket he recently received, and the warm applause which marked the end of his appearance revealed a crowd which had been well and truly won over by this loveable goofball.

So, there we have it. One club, five comedians at the top of their respective games and an entirely enjoyable method of passing one’s evening. If I had a minor gripe, it’s the revolving-door setup which meant that many of the acts were just hitting their strides when they had to make way for whomever was due onstage next; however, they say that the first rule of show business is to leave your audience wanting more and, in this regard, David Cross And Friends was a resounding success.