PEAR SHAPED COMEDY - SYDNEY - Monday 29th November 2004

East Village Hotel, 234 Palmer Street, East Sydney NSW 2010

PEAR SHAPED COMEDY CLUB
RE-OPENS MONDAY 29th NOVEMBER
MC s Brian Damage & Krysstal + LOADS of comics

Infoline: 0414 818 577 (from 10th Nov)
Tickets/Entry: A paltry $5

EVERY MONDAY @ EAST VILLAGE HOTEL

Every Monday MCs Brian Damage & Krysstal will proudly present the Best and Worst of Sydney’s Comics, Cranks and Crackpots. A wild & wonderful night out!

Pear Shaped in Sydney follows in the footsteps of its sister clubs in London and at the Edinburgh Festival , a favourite of comedians and audience alike. There is no telling who will drop in to perform for the sheer pleasure of it, to plug their show, try out new material or just have a laugh.

Brian & Krysstal, run a weekly club in London called Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia, self-proclaimed as London’s Second Worst Comedy Club. The club has the well-deserved reputation of discovering and nurturing new talent.

Comedians new and old have performed at Pear Shaped over the years including special shows at the Edinburgh Festival. Well-known UK and Aussie comedians who have graced Pear Shaped stages in London and at The Edinburgh Festival include:

Daniel Kitson * Malcolm Hardee * Al Murray * Boothby Graffoe * Dan Antapolski * Mark Maier * Nick Wilty * Phil Nichol * Sarah Kendall * Marty Lappan * Peter Willey * Rhyss Darby * Damien Clarke * Charlie Chuck award winners * Paul Foot * Shazia Mirza * Hal Cruttendan *
and many others too humorous to mention!

Every Monday at Pear Shaped in Sydney, Brian & Krysstal will present numerous performers from the comedy circuit, including visiting comedians from interstate and overseas.

The comedians have fun, the audience has fun and beware, you may find yourself doing a spot as well. Anything is possible at Pear Shaped!

JUST A FEW COMEDIANS WHO HAVE APPEARED AT PEAR SHAPED IN SYDNEY
Peter Willey, Chris Radburn, Jimbo, Mick Meredith, Clint Paddison, Nick Sun, John Kelly, Joe June, Alain D Woolf , Thorton the Mindbender, The Grumpies, Peter Meisel, Marnie, Dave Bloustien, Clint Paddison, Michael Hilder, Judas Falling, Gary Bradbury, Steve Freeman, Dory, Special K, Marty Lappan, Desh, Terry North, Lawrence Yarwood, Brett Nicols, Massimo, Russel Trenery, Mel Sargeant, Johnny Livings, Sam Bowring, Kent Valentine, Special K, Daniel Townes, The Funny Guy, Adam Dean, The Pointless Sisters,Barry McCloud, Tony Bailey, James Page, Linda Grasso, Carlos, Dory, Sue Thomas, and many more to follow..

More about Brian & Krysstal http://www.briandamage.net
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FOUR STAR REVIEW FOR THIS YEARS SHOW AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
www.chortle.co.uk
http://www.chortle.co.uk/edfest2004/edshows.html?http&&&www.chortle.co.uk/edfest2004/pear.html

Sunday, August 15, 2004
Review
Holyrood Tavern -Thur Fri & Sat Only - Midnight to 2 30am £6/£5
BRIAN DAMAGE & KRYSSTAL GO PEAR SHAPED AT MIDNIGHT
Brian Damage seems to have been around as long as Arthur Smith\’s jokes and, like them, he only gets better with age. From that statement, you can see that this review is very much a matter of personal taste.
Lovers of bland, homogenised comedy are advised to read no further.

This legendary Fringe show starts with an hour of Brian Damage\’s double act with top straight-woman Kyrsstal (Vicky de Lacy), followed by an alleged hour of highly individual comedy cabaret acts. The second hour lasted 105 minutes and included the likes of The Comedy Terrorist, Peter Buckley-Hill and Andrew O’Neill plus four other five-minute acts and nine other two-minute acts. Dull it ain’t and it was loudly enjoyed by a full audience.

Brian Damage and Krysstal (for half of the show she appears not as strangely straight Krysstal but as Thirties BBC-style character Madge) are a one-off cross-genre act but they have echoes of The Bonzos, the heyday of music hall and some rather seedy country and western club in the West Midlands where people called Kevin wear stetsons and call themselves Deke.

The duo can simultaneously be professional and shambolic in the best possible way. Tonight, they were also intermittently performing a scripted Reithian radio show with ad-libs, their ancient yet still funny comic C&W songs, end-of-the-pier British filth and bad puns welcomed like old friends: “With all the stuff we’re doing about shite, we should be up for the Derriere Award”

While BBC producers are scouring the trendy Pleasance venues for bright young Oxbridge things to write fifth-rate shows for Radio 4, all the time, there sits under their noses or, at the bottom of the Pleasance hill a ready-made first-rate radio show being performed in the rather sweaty back room of the Holyrood Tavern.

Almost five years ago, Chortle called the Pear Shaped cabaret show “a unique comic experience that you really have to sample at least once”. The advice has not changed. It is rare to find the true anarchic spirit of the Fringe and early alternative comedy still thriving. But it is alive and well here.

The Brian Damage and Pear Shaped double-bill show gets a very personal four stars. Lovers of slick, smooth comedy should stay well away. But I laughed like a drain.

PEAR SHAPED COMEDY CLUB