The Verse’s Rebecca Bench tells us what she thought of Paul Foot at Brighton’s Komedia on Thursday 1st December
Heading down to The Komedia to see Paul Foot perform his sold out show, ‘Tis A Pity She’s A Piglet’, I didn’t know what to expect from the comedian. When I got there I was shown to a seat, as there was cabaret seating for his show. It was a nice change, and made the atmosphere much more relaxed. The only pitfall was that if you were anywhere other than a booth it could be a bit cramped.
Before the support act came onstage, Paul Foot gave a brief introduction to the show – in which he spent about five minutes making jokes about the food being served.
Malcolm Head was the support, whose act revolved around telling jokes in the form of poems, haikus and football chants. His set was rather short but he packed a lot into the short amount of time. He also created the game Age Bingo, for which audience shouted out their age and he would tell a corresponding joke. For the most part this was very funny. Also included in his set were beat poems, where he played the bongo and performed material he couldn’t fit into full jokes. Although amusing, his other material was definitely better.
Having seen Paul Foot on various panel shows over the years, I knew to expect a lot of eccentricity. But I wasn’t expecting it to work quite as well in a stand up show. Within the first ten minutes he had already mounted a person sitting in the front row; although this wasn’t unexpected his audience interaction was certainly very full on.
Very big on physical comedy, Paul Foot’s routine was so funny because of his inability to stay still. Throughout the whole show he was strutting around the stage, which personally, added to his humour. Another stand out moment came when he made a woman punch a stuffed monkey in the face. Overall his whole performance was incredibly obscure, but it really worked and the audience were definitely loving it.
After each joke Foot would state, “That is the end of that piece of humour”, which could have easily got old but worked really well. His awkward personality seems to fit seamlessly with his confident stage presence, making him a unique performer to see live.
