A great night of laughs at Bath’s best comedy venue
Mark Watson was on the last date of his current tour – apart from a couple of upcoming corporate gigs, so he explained – and he was determined to enjoy his night in Bath.
Mind you, having seen Mark Watson a few times before, he always looks as if he’s enjoying his gigs, which is one of the best things about his shows. Despite it being the 100th odd night of the tour, he’s still laughing at his own jokes, apparently coming up with new thoughts off the cuff and generally enjoying the whole experience, all probably helped by several glasses of red wine throughout the show and the appreciation of a sold-out audience.
Apparently, the theme of this show, according to the Komedia website, was, ‘Mark Watson’s 12-year-old son has just got a phone. His 70-year-old dad has been through the most frightening experience of his life. Both a dad and a kid himself, around the midpoint of his life, the Taskmaster star and multiple award-winner – now also famous as one-third of YouTube cult sensation No More Jockeys – returns.’
Except, it wasn’t – not really. Maybe that was the idea and he’d just got tired of all this over the last 99 plus gigs and he just fancied something different. Instead we got the occasional bit about his son and his phone, but way more about being a divorced dad, Charles Dickens, a previous passing acquaintance with Suella Braverman and most of all, his admiration for Paul who was doing British Sign Language for the show.
You see, for this gig, Mark was joined on stage by Paul who was signing the whole gig for anyone who would benefit from it, and there was this wonderful ongoing joke of how Paul would interpret anything from rude words and lines of Bohemian Rhapsody to soaping up a kangaroo. Mind you, as Mark commented, there was no way for him to check whether Paul was following the script. “He could be doing all his own material and there’s 10 deaf people in the audience pissing themselves!”
Whatever Paul thought of the gig, my family and I loved it. Mark Watson’s unique, rambling and apparently haphazard delivery is back up with a great intellect and very clever observations – after all, as he was keen to tell us, this is a bloke that not only won Celebrity Mastermind but also got three As at A-level and ended up at Cambridge living around the corner from fellow student Suella Braverman – for whom he didn’t appear to have the greatest of respect. Well, I mentioned he was clever.
Elsewhere, the subject of parents WhatsApp groups and school open days would have struck a chord with any parents in the audience, with his being on the end of the constant random questions from his children being described as “like being in a press conference with drunk people!”
All in all this was a great evening of comedy from one of Britain’s best stand-ups – and a Bristol boy as well.
For details about loads of great upcoming shows at Komedia Bath, go to www.komedia.co.uk/bath/