Comedy / a bunch of japes
Preview: A Bunch of Japes, Smoke and Mirrors
It’s a top line-up for this next instalment of the buzzing Monday-night comedy session, run by the uniquely well-connected Mark Olver at Smoke and Mirrors bar and magic theatre in the city centre.
Every Monday, circuit comics visit Olver’s lair to roadtest new material ahead of this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe. And tonight’s pairing looks one of the best this month, featuring as it does the Eton- and Oxford-educated Ivo Graham, who won 2009’s So You Think You’re Funny new act competition, at the age of 18 – following that with a Best Newcomer nomination in the 2010 Chortle Awards.
That educational CV may suggest an arrogant princeling, but Graham’s comedy actually makes much of his own gaucheness and lack of social sophistication.
Also on the bill is the engaging Nathan Caton (pictured). A steadily rising sketch comic and former Chortle Student Comic of the Year, Caton gave up his architecture degree to pursue a career in the funny business.
And all the evidence suggests that he made a wise choice: Caton is winning admirers everywhere for his likeable, streetwise delivery and engaging insights on life in the modern urban jungle. He’s also been seen and heard everywhere from Radio 4’s ‘The Now Show’ to ITV’s FHM Stand-Up Hero, tackling topics from race to playground jokes – not to mention his own frequent bemusement at the foibles and confusions of modern life. “Confident, charismatic and upbeat,” is chortle.co.uk’s succinct assessment.
See here for our interview with Mark about the Bunch of Japes nights.
Ivo Graham and Nathan Caton play A Bunch of Japes at Smoke and Mirrors bar, Bristol on Monday, 16 March. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.smokeandmirrorsbar.co.uk/buy-tickets—what-s-on.html
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