Comedy: Des Bishop

Yes, I'm back! We did go to Flanagan's over the weekend - without reservation, as they don't seem keen to answer their phone and there's no online booking. No problem getting a table - my soup was delicious, as was the bread that came with it, and we were happy enough with our mains, although my casserole was a bit salty. Desserts were fab. Entertainment was provided by the table of Dubliners that planted themselves next to us - all friends, meeting up for the bank holiday weekend. (Some had hired a boat - that's big around Killaloe.) And a gloriously warm and sunny one it was too! Right up to when I flew back to London last night.

Well, Meetup isn't doing too good a job at providing me with ideas midweek! So I did one of my least favourite things to find something for tonight - I trawled the mess that is the new Time Out search engine. You can't search by date anymore, you know - just "Today", "Tomorrow", "Next 7 days", "Next Month" and a search for everything that's happening forever more. So if you're looking further than one day in advance, you'll be trawling through a whole heap of stuff that's irrelevant. This is all then appended on one page, which takes forever to load. Tip: if you click on anything for further details, make sure to right-click and open it in a new tab, so if you need to return to the listings page you won't have to start from the top again!

In the end, I was delighted with what it threw up, though - Des Bishop is doing a series of shows in the Soho Theatre. I love Des, and although tickets were still available for most of the shows at that stage, I saw that one had sold out, so I booked. Just in case.

My preferred route to the Soho Theatre is via Leicester Square - although it's still crowded, it's nowhere near as bad as trying to hurry down Shaftesbury Avenue. So, I made my way through Chinatown onto Shaftesbury Avenue, which I had to cross to get where I was going. I made my way to the pedestrian crossing at Dean Street.. where I was joined by a chanting, tambourine-banging, group of Hare Krishnas. I crossed the road a little ahead of them - but behold, they followed me up Dean Street. I mused that it would make an interesting audience mix if they were coming to the show - but no, they turned off before we got there.

And so I arrived and got my ticket, glad that it was downstairs so I didn't have to deal with too many steps. Mind you, that was always more of an issue if I'd had to fight through the crowds on my way from Piccadilly Circus, and was breathless by the time I'd raced up Dean Street. That's if I made it in time at all. Tonight, mine was about the second-last ticket to be picked up, and downstairs was jammed. There are ushers to get people seats, and mine found me a chair very near the front. Lovely, and I sat. Unfortunately, one of those old-fashioned wooden chairs with poor back support - but never mind.

Wasn't long until the show started. Now, when I booked the ticket, I'd thought I hadn't seen Des Bishop live before - I'd forgotten that time he was in the Galway Arts Festival. On that occasion, he was fresh from spending a year in the West of Ireland, learning to speak Irish - and his routine was heavily based on that. (He's Irish-American, was sent to boarding school in Ireland as a teenager and never left. Ireland, not boarding school!)

As he explained in tonight's show, the Chinese are much like the Irish - doesn't matter where in the world you end up, there you'll find them! Anyway, during his year in the West of Ireland, he took a job in a fast food restaurant, and found himself working alongside a Chinese guy who became his friend. And later, when his Chinese friend was visiting his family in China, he took Des along. And Des explained how he was blown away by Chinese hospitality, and developed the idea to spend a year there, learning Chinese. And this he did, which provides the substance of his current routine.

It's Des Bishop, so this is not a show to bring your elderly mother to. Well, not your average elderly mother - or anyone who's easily offended. Mind you, he's far from the worst offender on the circuit. He was delighted to find some Chinese in the audience - picked on a Chinese couple in the front row a bit. In a nice way - he made such a fuss of them, and went out of his way not to offend them. Spoke to them in Chinese several times, to clarify points he'd just made. A large screen to the side acts as an aid to his talk, as he shows videos and slides of his year in China. And he stored up a wealth of observations to share with us.

In his hilarious and inimitable way, he points out all the quirks of Chinese society that we as Westerners would find so odd. He's brilliant at observing a society as an outsider, and does the best job I've seen of describing the Irish (we also got a mention or several tonight). And let me praise his Irish accent - he naturally has an American accent, but puts on a perfect Irish one when he desires. Which ain't easy to do. And now he's turned his focus on China - I can't really speak to his Chinese accent, which sounded authentic enough to me, but he bantered quite happily with the Chinese audience members. Oh, and this would be an interesting show for anyone learning Chinese - he has some interesting observations on that..

Good ol' Des, never disappoints! The show was sold out tonight, and apparently is for the rest of the run, until Saturday. Good thing I booked!

And the reason I can blog so late is that I'm not going to Guildford tomorrow after all - the meeting was cancelled. So I was a bit rushed today, finding something for tomorrow - Meetup had some very strange things, and several I just didn't fancy, so in the end I went with Time Out again. Luckily, I could search under "Tomorrow". I was thinking of A View From the Bridge, until I discovered you can get a whole production on YouTube. And anyway, tickets were a bit pricey. Instead, I'm going to My Night with Reg, a comedy at the Apollo Shaftesbury - which, coincidentally, I passed on my way home tonight! This theatre is infamous for having had its ceiling collapse last year, during a show - I assume they've fixed it! Anyway, cheapest seats were available on the official website, and say "Restricted View" - but I read a seat review that said they're fine. So we'll see.

And on Friday, I'm venturing on another Meetup (they have a better selection on weekends) - the Walk About London group is going on a walk from Westminster Bridge to London Bridge. At night, to see the lights of the City on the other side as you pass. Now, that should be lovely! I'm only gutted that I forgot my camera yet again - I left it in Ireland, and only remembered it as we were pulling into the airport. Nuts.. just have to do my best with my cameraphone.