Southside Comedy has a sizeable venue to cater to the multitude of Comedy enthusiasts out to laugh off the week’s stress and trials. Host, Billy T Award Winner Mike Loder, has the audience onside with his ‘lovely radio voice’, vocal pot shots and clever one-liners.

With the tone of the night set, introduction is made of the evening’s first comedian, Sean Downie. Laughs come thick and fast as Downie laments, takes-up and shakes-down topics in range from ESOL teaching to the UN.

Comedian Philip Patston approaches his set in a self-deprecating way, seamlessly funny; a year’s absence from the stage has done nothing to diminish his comic prowess. He jokes about age; thankfully, senility has done nothing to his wit.  

Unfortunately, rude audience members mar his set; one thing that riles me to the point of attack is arrogant and rude (women!) who exit a space like a herd of high-heeled buffalo, when a performer is onstage. Manners cost nothing, ‘do as you would be done by’.

Andre King is third to take the stage, a statuesque man, he is keen to loot the prize of ethnicity, his target being his own. There is no humour like it, the Kiwi sort, with the, ‘It’s okay, we’re bros’ personality to it. His version of race relations is excellent fodder for comedy, and plied well in his hands.

Andrew Clay is seen in as the feature act of the night. He looks tired; thankfully, this has no detrimental effect on his humour. The audience barrels along laughing as he half-heartedly asks if his 20 minutes is up yet. Laid back, Clay’s personal, and career accounts get an airing, as he manipulates his life stories to up our comic enjoyment.

At the set’s end, Mike Loder graciously closes the evening with thanks, and we the audience leave this successful instalment of Southside Comedy a few worries lighter. 
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