This show is comedy flying by the seat of its pants: not exactly improvised, but certainly thrown together. In the double-decker bus in the Free Sisters’ courtyard the crowd are all happy to take a punt on oddball comedy costing nothing but an hour of their time.
Gig organisers Adam Belbin and Padraig Ryan shamble through some hastily conceived banter to introduce the performance and the lineup to follow them. Belbin uses his moments in the spotlight to promote his own solo show with a degree of chutzpah that is oddly endearing, and Ryan tells a story about his first big night out in London with innocent charm.
First special guest is Sean McLoughlin, who covers classic comedy material (his relationship, poverty and bleak career prospects) and gets his knife into reviews and reviewers too. He has a biting sense of wordplay and some of the best lines of the piece, with the bus laughing through most of his act, but some of his material misjudges the fine line between bitterly comic and plain bitterness.
Matthew Highton is the second special guest and was my personal favourite with surreal storytelling and an amiable unassuming presence. He has some highly original material, and the jokes were well constructed, but in segues between them the energy dropped. Highton could afford to allow a longer build into his jokes to get the laughs he deserves; his geese impersonations were bizarrely brilliant but perhaps the crowd wasn’t quite ready for them.
The lineup changes every night so you never know what you’ll get, but there was plenty to enjoy in this set which relied on charisma over content. Much is made of the idiosyncrasies of the venue; most of the performers are unable to stand upright on the top deck of the bus. The ceiling is low, and expectations lower. And while it never exactly flies, it doesn’t fail either.
