Which comedians have you seen live who weren't as good as you expected?

[Bob The Badger]

I've probably seen over 100 professional comedians and rarely do they let you down, but these did.

Chris Rock - just ranted about his divorce

Lewis Black - just ranted full stop

Bill Maher - just ranted about Trump

Bit of a theme here.

Patrick Kielty - absolutely brilliant callback at the end, but up until then a bit plodding

Jim Norton - left halfway through, totally bored

I wouldn't have though Black and Norton are that well known here, but they're pretty big in the US and Black sold out a big venue for two shows.

[Andrew3000]

Unfortunately the late Sean Lock, about 10 yrs ago in the Darwin suite. He was just off and I can't recall whether this happened before or after one of the audience make a big fuss of puking everywhere during the performance. 

[Ramslad1992]

Ed Byrne many years ago.

Michael McIntyre when I was about 17.

one that was loads better than I’d thought he be was Rhod Gilbert. 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

20 minutes ago, Ramslad1992 said:

Ed Byrne many years ago.

Michael McIntyre when I was about 17.

one that was loads better than I’d thought he be was Rhod Gilbert. 

Michael McIntyre, rest of the family like him, i never found him funny, but went along for a family day out, live was even worse , (I could not go on my Ipad) cost a lot as well

[Ramslad1992]

28 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

Michael McIntyre, rest of the family like him, i never found him funny, but went along for a family day out, live was even worse , (I could not go on my Ipad) cost a lot as well

I never dislike him but wasn’t really bothered, we all went as a bunch of mates. If I remember it was about £35 he was on for about an hour AND had an interval… 

[G STAR RAM]

2 hours ago, Ramslad1992 said:

Ed Byrne many years ago.

Michael McIntyre when I was about 17.

one that was loads better than I’d thought he be was Rhod Gilbert. 

I saw Ed Byrne many years ago before he was famous and dont think I laughed once during his entire set.

Was astounded when he started appearing on the tv.

 

[Eddie]

The only comedian I've seen live over the last 20 years is Emo Philips.

I almost wet myself laughing, although alcohol was involved.

[Bob The Badger]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

The only comedian I've seen live over the last 20 years is Emo Philips.

I almost wet myself laughing, although alcohol was involved.

He'd been drinking then, had he?

I like his religion sketch where he pushes a heretic off a bridge.

 

[Bob The Badger]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

I saw Ed Byrne many years ago before he was famous and dont think I laughed once during his entire set.

Was astounded when he started appearing on the tv.

 

I had a friend say that about Rob Bryden.

[Ewe Ram]

Jimmy Carr. Playground humour that wasn’t even funny when I was at school. 
Omid Jalili (sp?). Just meh. 
Kathryn Ryan. Thinks saying things in a posh English accent makes them funny 

[Gaspode]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

The only comedian I've seen live over the last 20 years is Emo Philips.

I almost wet myself laughing, although alcohol was involved.

could be an age thing....combine that with mentioning that you'd 'watered' your beans' the other day and I think you need to get yourself checked out....

[therealhantsram]

Bad...

Jimmy Carr and his PowerPoint deck. Urgh. So dull.

Lenny Henry. Unfuny political rants.

Mark Lamar.

Outstanding...

Lee Mack.

jo Brand.

The late, great Ian Cognito. 

[Anon]

David O'Doherty - I saw him at the fringe the year after he'd won loads of awards. Unfortunately he'd apparently had a pretty rough 12 months and his new show was a thoroughly miserable crawl through a nasty break up. I'm not sure how much cynicism was involved in his choice of material since overly personal and intimate routines were very much "in" at that time. I still think he's a good comedian, we just happened to catch him at a really bad time.

Marcus Brigstocke - This one is on me because in retrospect I don't know why I expected any better, but I did. His work isn't dreadful, just painfully ordinary paint by numbers stuff that anyone who has listened to two or more radio 4 panel shows could write in their sleep. He also came across as quite pompous, and it wasn't put on for humour, or if it was, it didn't work.

Matt Forde - I've already complained about this gig in another thread, but duck it, he's a Forest fan so I'm twisting the knife. Forde got into an extremely petty argument with Sean Walsh during his Edinburgh review. Both of them were too arrogant to let it go and the state of their passive aggressive "banter" was utterly woeful. I'd call it a dick swinging contest, but that metaphor is far too generous.

[Anon]

11 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

Bill Maher - just ranted about Trump

Although I've made similar mistakes regarding political comedians who actually can't do anything beyond rant about news headlines, what else were you possibly expecting from Maher?

[Bob The Badger]

11 hours ago, Andrew3000 said:

Unfortunately the late Sean Lock, about 10 yrs ago in the Darwin suite. He was just off and I can't recall whether this happened before or after one of the audience make a big fuss of puking everywhere during the performance. 

I never saw him life, but that is a shame because what I've seen on YouTube is really good.

Having said that, any comedian can have a bad night.

Seen Jim Jefferies 7 times, 6 were brilliant but he defo seemed off for the last one. Mind you that was the only one in an arena and a couple of times it was very small venues before he was really well known, so maybe he's better suited to that type of audience. Very sad about Sean Lock.

[Bob The Badger]

19 minutes ago, Anon said:

Although I've made similar mistakes regarding political comedians who actually can't do anything beyond rant about news headlines, what else were you possibly expecting from Maher?

I'd seen him do stand up on TV and it wasn't like one long monologue as this was. Literally 90% of the set was about Trump. I despise Trump, but it felt like he was just trying to convert the one audience member who liked Trump.

Jonathan Pie ranted, but it was brilliant, far cleverer than Maher.

And I've seen Trevor Noah twice and he was utterly brilliant. It didn't feel like I was sat in the audience for The Daily Show at all.

The same goes for the one time I saw Seth Myers. Some politics as per his show, but really smart humour.

Who have you seen along political lines?

[Bob The Badger]

30 minutes ago, Anon said:

David O'Doherty - I saw him at the fringe the year after he'd won loads of awards. Unfortunately he'd apparently had a pretty rough 12 months and his new show was a thoroughly miserable crawl through a nasty break up. I'm not sure how much cynicism was involved in his choice of material since overly personal and intimate routines were very much "in" at that time. I still think he's a good comedian, we just happened to catch him at a really bad time.

Marcus Brigstocke - This one is on me because in retrospect I don't know why I expected any better, but I did. His work isn't dreadful, just painfully ordinary paint by numbers stuff that anyone who has listened to two or more radio 4 panel shows could write in their sleep. He also came across as quite pompous, and it wasn't put on for humour, or if it was, it didn't work.

Matt Forde - I've already complained about this gig in another thread, but duck it, he's a Forest fan so I'm twisting the knife. Forde got into an extremely petty argument with Sean Walsh during his Edinburgh review. Both of them were too arrogant to let it go and the state of their passive aggressive "banter" was utterly woeful. I'd call it a dick swinging contest, but that metaphor is far too generous.

I don't know any of those guys.

After 15 years in the States I'm a bit out of the loop with UK comedians.

Suggestions always welcome.

My favourite comedian is Doug Stanhope and he's coming here next year. I'm toying with going to the Sheffield gig, but the mate I used to go and see him with in Orlando every year is the only person I know into his type of humour. And he's 4,500 miles away.

[Anon]

13 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

Who have you seen along political lines?

It was Brigstocke I was thinking of when I said I'd made a similar mistake. I mostly avoid overtly political comedians because it's a difficult routine to pull off. A couple of routines I've seen that were pretty heavily political, but also funny were done by Mark Thomas and Rob Newman.

Edit - I really like some of Will Franken's political bits too.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Anon

[Anon]

14 hours ago, Bob The Badger said:

I don't know any of those guys.

After 15 years in the States I'm a bit out of the loop with UK comedians.

Suggestions always welcome.

My favourite comedian is Doug Stanhope and he's coming here next year. I'm toying with going to the Sheffield gig, but the mate I used to go and see him with in Orlando every year is the only person I know into his type of humour. And he's 4,500 miles away.

I really need to get to a Stanhope gig at some point. Pretty much everyone I know who's seen him highly recommends him.

If you like surrealism I'd recommend Tony Law. His shows are always good fun and since he ad-libs a large portion of his material, no two shows are ever the same.

[JoetheRam]

Jimmy Carr.

Wouldn't class myself as a fan but even I'd heard half his jokes 10 years beforehand. I think it was meant to be edgy but was extremely tame. Everything was over rehearsed and was as if reading from a script.