Fielding At The Chapel

Now that we know Noel Fielding visits us at The Velvet Onion to read his gig reviews we felt we couldn’t disappoint him by missing his next one.  As none of the Onion crew were available to see him at the Union Chapel in Islington London this week, one of our roving Forum members, Lucia, very kindly offered to do the honours.  Here’s what she had to say:

“Greg Davies opened the night as compere, leaving us with the image of a 7 foot robot owl being eaten out (!), as he introduced the first act. His energy throughout the night never seemed to waver as he plucked story after story from his ‘little book of pithy tales’ – rememberings from his experiences. One of the highlights of his act had to be the ease in which he interacted with the audience, picking our random audience members to nudge his stories along.

The next act, Dan Atkinson, filled the stage with nervous energy, moving from issue to issue as quickly as he seemed to circle the stage. His observations of living in London and the issues of recycling, drinking, and children were perhaps not to my sense of humour but kept the audience laughing happily. That said, his ability to shock the audience when they’re not expecting it is on par with very few comedians I have seen, and drew the biggest laughs during his set.

© Lucia

The introduction of Joe Wilkinson provided a change in pace from the previous high energy acts. He started out a little weakly, but as his act progressed into his own stories and the audience participation diminished, no one could stop laughing. His awareness of his body language and facial expression added beautifully to his own, rather charming, stories.

The final act of the night, Noel Fielding, started off his set with some of his more familiar material – the magic of whispering and the philosophy of chavs, though some new twists and descriptive ramblings added to it and brought a genuine freshness to the stories. There were some new tales, including a novel new story of some other chavs he has met (which I won’t spoil for you by revealing any more here). He also indulged the audience with a story about Monkey Edwards (I had feared he wouldn’t), which while perhaps needing a little polishing, filled the audience’s minds with brilliant imagery!  However, the real magic came from his improvisation and interaction with the audience. The everyday happenings of a live audience: coming in late,  going to the toilet, hecklers, and other interruptions (also in the form of me dropping my Pez – sorry!) led to hilarious responses from Noel. The parts of his act that looked like they were thought up in the moment, while having none of the clean cut endings of his usual material, were wonderful while they lasted!

All in all, a great evening!”

Thanks to Lucia for the report.