Henning Wehn: That German Comedian

Henning Wehn brought his latest stand-up comedy show, Henning Knows Bestest, to Canterbury's The Gulbenkian Theatre on Saturday, May 11th. I travelled from London to see him, and it was definitely worth the journey, and missing Doctor Who; after all, you can't iPlayer theatre.

Regardless, beforehand I had only really seen him on comedy panel shows, on Dave's One Night Stand and occasionally on Radio 4, so it was a slight gamble. However, it was one of the best comedy nights I have had. It started off with him being his own warm-up act. Unfortunately, the material he used in this section of the show seemed to be his go-to jokes he uses on TV; witty, satirical observations. For example, in the week following this show, he was on 10 O'Clock Live, providing a few jokes about Europe, all of which I had heard just days earlier.

"Like Rats Fighting In A Ditch"

Last week I dragged the girlfriend along to go watch Stewart Lee’s ‘Carpet Remnant World’ at Canterbury's new Marlowe Theatre. We didn't have great tickets; we were in the Upper Circle, one row from the very back. However, thanks to great designing, we could still see the stage brilliantly due to the elevated seats. The one issue is that with comedy shows such as these, you lose the intimacy if you are further away. For example, previous to this performance, I have only ever seen comedians in very intimate venues with only a few hundred. Suddenly, you don't seem to connect as well with someone when in a theatre holding 1,200 people. For this reason, I do not get the appeal of seeing a comedian, or anything, in a huge venue holding thousands of people such as The London O2 or Wembley Arena; you end up just watching the comedian on the giant screens around the venue.

I believe for a comedian to be their most successful, you have to have a small, intimate venue. It is much easier to work a crowd of 200, than one larger: any comedian would probably tell you that. Stewart Lee is completely the same. If you watch his stand-up DVD's or television series, you can see that he excels in a small group. I think my enjoyment of the show was lessened because of how far away we were from the stage. Not to sound like I am being negative, but he was talking to the few hundred people in the stalls, and sometimes ignoring everyone higher. However, he is a genius when it comes to stand-up (I mean, you would be after 25 years), and he is fully aware of what he is doing. Of course, he is doing it intentionally, and in large venues like this, it feeds his routine with extra fun.

The question is did I enjoy it?

Of course I bloody well did!

Like all Stewart Lee material, you're never quite sure when he actually starts his routine, because it all just seems natural. It isn't a false conversation like a lot of other comedians do, it is ,in fact, just a well informed rant/lecture. Even though I use the word lecture to describe it, it is a fun lecture. If you wanted to get into stand-up, then it is essential to go see him perform I believe. You can learn a lot about the art of stand-up from him.

His jokes are nicely varied, with some being just simple one-line jokes, a number were 20 minutes rants about something, whether it be him watching Scooby-Doo, Twitter or discussing the process of finding his material, and others were satirical observations about the local area or politics. The rest of the time, he was just shouting at the audience, which is strangely endearing. I mean, I'm not sure Michael McIntyre would get away with yelling and swearing at the audience for two hours, but Stewart can.

When it comes to favourite comedians I have seen live, he is up there with Lee Mack, and it is purely down to audience interaction and the ability to adapt a routine for an audience and local things which they can relate to. Stewart Lee did this through bringing on stage the front cover of the local newspaper to mock its lead story, for the main local news was a Headteacher, wearing a red wig, pretending to kidnap the Janitor. It was very good.

Of course, I cannot convey how funny it was in a not-very-well-written blog without giving you all the jokes and ruining it for prospective audience members, so you will just have to believe me.

However, what makes him different from the other comedians that I have seen is how friendly he is, and willing to spend time with the people who paid to see him. I joined the back of a five minute queue to shake his hand, have him sign a book and have a picture taken with him (as well as making an unfunny joke about how to spell Stuart/Stewart). I thoroughly enjoyed my evening in the company of Mr Stewart Lee. He was humble and lovely when I met him afterwards, and during the show he was everything you expect him to be: Funny, sarcastic, full of hate and ‘alternative’. So much so, it felt like he had made my diaphragm enter my throat.

P.S. "…Dog; [In a high-pitched voice] Dooog?" You’ll get it when/if you see/saw it…

Thank-You God For Murders, Floods and Reality Television

This week Canterbury has been in the news lot. A murder, a shooting and local headteacher Phil Karnavas (Canterbury High - Woop!) in The Guardian (which I unsuspectingly saw on a train to London) moaning about the Government’s attitude towards education. You can tell a lot about a city by where their shootings happen. In London people get shot in 'da ghettos', in Liverpool it's randomly on the street and in Canterbury it's in Morrisons, next to the cleaning products isle. Who cares about that though? All everyone really cares about this week is X-Factor, I'm A Celebrity and Cocks In Mouths - oh sorry, it's Cockermouth, my mistake.

Pretty much everyone has heard this week that in the heavy rain, a place in Cumbria called 'Cockermouth', got flooded. Now, am I only one that laughed the morning it happened when they were talking about it on the news? Surely it isn't just me who is that immature. Listening to the news has become a battle, seeing who many times the news reporter can say 'Cockermouth' before you laugh. Who named that place anyway? It's a ridiculous name for a town. I have a theory about how it came to get that name...
The Mayor was having a conversation on the phone to the sign makers who were going to design the new sign for the town, when all of a sudden a prostitute walks in. The Mayor then shouted 'My cocks in her mouth', but because the phone line was dodgy it came out the other end as 'cockermouth', and the Mayor, to embarrassed to tell this story, decided he would change the name of the town instead. That’s my theory anyway.
Now everytime it rains, a man standing by the river says on the news report that ‘Cockermouth is at risk of being flooded again’, when really it's only a 10 minute shower. People really are very paranoid when it comes to flooding. I'm only going to worry about flooding when a giant wooden boat sails past my house smelling like a farmyard...
A farmyard links me nicely to this year’s 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here'. I'm going to attempt to write about it, even though I've not watched one second of it this year. It certainly has run its course. People still watch it, and people still feel the need to tell me what's going on, but really, it's the same kangaroo-testical-eating-nonsense as it was 8 years ago. ITV have missed out on one good piece of marketing however. Imagine if ITV done 3D week instead of Channel 4; the nation be invited to watch Katie Price's breasts in 3 dimensions. That's a scary thought, but it would have made all the lonely old men rush to Sainsbury's to get a pair of glasses to watch her pair of jugs.
Katie Price walked out of the jungle after a week, when she realised that no-one liked her after being nominated to do every bush tucker trial. She apparently went into the jungle to get closure - well I have a piece of advice for you Katie Price -'Close your legs, close your mouth and f*** off'. Harsh, I know, but she really does annoy me these days.
When she walked out, she then dumped her boyfriend on live television, and now the papers are relishing the fact that the ex-boyfriend may sell some naughty images of her. It really has been another few weeks of Katie Price cluttering up my head with useless information I don't want to know about her.
How unlucky ITV were Sunday night. They lost two pairs of tits in on evening. Before Katie Price left I'm A Celebrity, John and Edward were finally booted off the X-Factor. I believe that 'Jedward', as people call them, are the singing equivalent to Nick Griffin. No-one likes them, but someone must have voted for them for them to last so long. The Irish Twats... Twits... Twins (I got there eventually) during their time, danced with a giant marshmallow while ‘singing’ Ghostbusters, ‘sang’ numerous Queen songs, ‘rapped’ wearing white jump suits and also ‘sang’ a Britney Spears song while wearing red Lycra. Multitalented certainly isn't a word I'd use to describe them. The next day, there were rumours that 'Jedward' where going to fly to Australia and join the I'm A Celebrity jungle – it is amazing how gullible the public are.
Right, that's the end of this satirical blog. My target is to do a satirical blog once a week about things which have happened during that week. How long this will last, I don't know, but I will but try. I shall still do my long blogs though, and the next blog will be about New Moon...


P.S. I'm not religious.

My God, There Are Some Idiots About...

Well, obviously the care homes can’t afford to look after idiotic people anymore due to the credit crunch, so have been let onto the streets, of Canterbury it seems – although I’m sure where ever you go in the country, it won’t take long for you to find an idiot to talk to...

I’ve been fortunate to have the morning off, so have enjoyed the sunshine, and been out in public, on the bus, in shops and walking down the high street, and everywhere I went, I seemed to find someone asking silly question or people being genuinely stupid.

First things first, I caught the bus today into Canterbury from Boughton and sat on the top deck, taking pictures of the scenery for my photography, and I was listening to these two women talking, and one of them seriously said to the other – “Are you going somewhere?” We are all on a bus, obviously going somewhere, and she asks that question. How idiotic is that? She could have asked ‘Where you off too?’ or ‘Are you going somewhere nice?’ But no, she asks a question, which has a blatant reply. “Yes.”

So, we all got off the bus, and I thought no-more about it. Then, during my travels around Canterbury, I pop into the card shop which is appropriately named ‘Birthdays’. You look at the name and you go, ‘Oh, they must sell Birthday cards’. Well my dear friends, I was wrong. Just as I was paying for my purchases, a man walked in, and he had the cheek to ask the assistant – “Do you sell birthday cards?” That has to be one of the stupidest questions ever asked by humans. If I had enough confidence, I would have given him a right talking too, after I said something sarcastic. Maybe something along the lines of ‘Of course not, it’s called Birthdays so people know that they don’t sell birthday cards!’ That really annoyed me that question did.

Then we get to the final point, which proves how stupid some people are...

If you live in Canterbury, then I am sure that you have at some time, encountered a women half way down the high street giving out ‘Lucky Heather’ in return for a pound coin. I have fallen into this, and I did do this last year. Unfortunately, my luck didn’t change, so was a waste of money. Every time I walk down the street the past few weeks, she offers me one, and on two occasions I have started an argument with her, hoping she’d get the point that I don’t want one. Although today, I encountered her again, and as usual, she asked me to buy one. I didn’t argue, and just ignored her as it does no good, and I don’t like to argue with anyone. The fact that I have made my point quite clear, and yet she still offers me one is ridiculous. The heather has clearly come out of someone’s garden and she’s wrapped it in a bit of foil, so unless she managed to get a leprechaun to ‘take a leak’ on it, I fail to see where the luck has come from. Although, for the record, I don’t endorse leprechaun wee to be lucky as I have had no experience with the stuff.

It does amaze me how many idiots you encounter on a day-to-day bases. Then, if I wanted to, I could continue to talk about people I know. People who consider themselves to be my best friends, when actually they bore me, the topics we discuss are hardly of any interest to me. He’d be better talking to a 10 year old kid than me, although I do fear the 10 year old kid would get eaten. Oh well, that’s life, and unfortunately, we are stuck with it. Unless, we endorse euthanasia, which is kind of illegal, so we must do the best next thing, and either ignore them or give them sarcastic replies. It’s the only way these people are going to learn.

Oh, and while I’m on the subject. When Jade Goody dies, I have decided I am going to do my own little tribute to her, like OK magazine have. Difference is, I’m going to wait until she passes onto the next world – wherever that will be. And don’t worry, I am expecting to get some ‘negative’ responses to it.

Toodles m’dearys.

Stuy xXXx