You can often judge a comedian by their interactions with the audience. Of the four young comedians performing here, some faired better than others with an admittedly tough crowd.
Our host Mark Smith arguably faired the worst. His set consisted almost entirely of audience interaction with very little actual material. Relying on the audience is a risky strategy that, in this case, didn’t pay off - some heckling jokers were actually funnier than Smith himself. He must learn to recognise when a joke is going nowhere and change tact. Smith needs to try harder by standing up to the crowd and providing some solid material.
Headliner Hayley Ellis asked a lot of questions but failed to provide the punchlines, leaving the audience waiting for a laugh. Her self-deprecating stories were well told but didn’t wind up to a satisfying conclusion. She was a likeable character, but her jokes were too inconsistent to justify her position on the bill.
Ahir Shah boldly strode into the audience with his routine of political and ethnic jokes – these being jokes in the loosest sense. At just 21 and a recent Cambridge graduate, Shah is an incredibly erudite and charismatic performer with a broad vocabulary. Yet he seems to have forgotten that this is stand-up comedy, not just storytelling. As he said himself of his set, “it’s not funny but it’s f--king clever”.
That left Kieran Boyd to finally bring some worthy humour. His observational comedy was full of pithy gags that generated some laughs from the audience. Boyd was by far the most confident comedian, the only one to stand up to the heckling and use it to his advantage. Most importantly, he was actually amusing and oozed charisma, something the other members of the Comedy Zone should take note of.
