Review: Comedy Garden: Milton Jones, etc

Does a festival truly exist without mud? Another rainy evening in June, another chance to traipse through the boggy grounds of Queen Square in search of laughs at the Comedy Garden. The weather outside may have been miserable, but the atmosphere in The Big Top was delightfully warm as comedy legend Richard Herring took to the stage to host the evening. 

Anyone who follows Herring on Twitter will have instantly noticed him quoting his own Tweets on stage. But this isn’t a poor reflection on his stand-up, more a testament to how hilarious this man is online. If you can respond so quick-wittedly to the world unfolding around you, why not throw such raw and relevant observations into your set too? While his fresh remarks on “the two Etonians fucking up the country ” certainly hit the mark, it’s when he delves into his own little realm of childish mundanity that Herring really charms. Speaking at great length about how no one really loves or hates Twixes, Herring generates the first big laughs of the evening and starts a joke that ends up persisting all night. 

As seen on QI, Loose Women and Question Time, Shappi Khorsandi’s down-to-earth, gossipy humour has vast mainstream appeal. Focusing mainly on confessional stories about her failed relationships, Khorsandi reveals some of her most desperate moments of single motherhood with the perfect amount of self-deprecation. 

Some tales fall a little flat: but just smile and nod through them, because Khorsandi has some smirk-inducing anecdotes about supermarket dating and Iranian toilets to follow. Her set isn’t jam-packed with laugh-out-loud material, but her blunt honesty is admirable and her 30 minutes onstage feel like chatting with a friend.

Cool, calm and collected, Danny Bhoy strides on stage in perfect semblance of that kid in school who everyone likes. Changing the lyrics of K.W.S’ Please Don’t Go to Please Don’t Gove, he quickly has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. His relaxed, natural manner allows him to get political without getting angry, ensuring his impressions of politicians are as easily digestible as can be. 

It’s strange to criticise a comedian for being too likable, but Bhoy’s observational humour is so relatable that is borders on the obvious at points. When he rewrites the declaration of independence by America’s Founding Mothers, there are moments when it’s too easy to predict what he’s going to say next. He’s like the stand-up equivalent of a 90s sitcom: totally enjoyable if you feel like switching your brain off, but the jokes go down so smoothly that you will forget the way they tasted.

With his trademark big hair and loud shirt, Milton Jones expertly reels off puns and has the entire crowd in hysterics. When you see comedy live, you hear different types of laughs – but only at a Milton Jones show will you hear this particular giggle that grows and lingers so long after a joke. It’s the sound of an audience slowly but fully realising the sheer inventive lunacy of his wordplay. It is a delight to listen to him twisting meanings into unpredictable jokes, delivering them with impeccable timing. Jones wisely breaks up his barrage of clever gags with some audience interaction, which is surprisingly sharp for a comedian with such lateral, thought-out content.

The definition of ‘short but sweet’, Jones successfully compressed a year’s worth of excellent jokes into a whirlwind half-hour set, leaving everyone chuckling away to themselves as they walked out of the door.

Bristol Comedy Garden continues in Queen Square until Sunday, July 3. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristolcomedygarden.co.uk