Comedy news and reviews from the Suffolk site

• What else to add after something of a soggy Latitude? Well, I saw more penises than I'd envisaged – and none of them were Phil Nichol's. Gratuitous nudity came courtesy of Late Night Gimp Fight, who stormed the cabaret tent, a random stage-crasher, and Spank's Leon Fleury – who led his audience in a late-night singalong of Daydream Believer in the Literary tent. Literary? Oh, well. Musical highlights were The Vaccines and The Eels, but as usual with Latitude, the joy is wandering around to see what you stumble across, whether it's an aerial acrobat performing suspended from a giant illuminated orb above the lake, or a man doing data analysis in a Robin Ince session. Till next year, then, Southwold…

• And, ladies and gentlemen, your final act in the comedy arena, Mr Alan Carr – and a very popular headliner by the sound of the ovation. 'What the fuck am I doing here?' were his opening words, now he's a bona fide TV star with no need to play muddy tents. The answer is surely that this is work in progress for this autumn's Spexy Beast tour, as he warned us the set would be patchy. However, if anything was unrefined, it didn't really show, except maybe a couple of hack lines about people trying on his glasses and Baby On Board signs. But for the most part, this was Carr doing what he does best, complaining entertainingly about his poor blighted life. Even though he's famous, he still lives in a shitty part of London, and, in the words of someone else 'don't get no respect'. You might accuse him of being a drama queen – even something as straightforward as a swimming pool wave machine has him shrieking in disbelief – but if is reaction was proportionate, this wouldn't be comedy...

• Sandwiched between Brendon Burns and Alan Carr is a tough billing, but Nathan Caton went down very well in this penultimate slot. He's a consummate professional in his delivery, with well-structured callbacks galore, but a lot of his material is too pedestrian for my taste: strict West Indian (grand)parents and the sort of 'Yo momma's so fat...' insults you could glean off the internet. But there's little doubt that he's given the audience what they want.

• For a man who built his reputation on being shouty and confrontational, Brendon Burns is in more contemplative mood these days. This set is definitely one of his more philosophical, and occasionally came across as something of a sermon about national psyches, the nature of comedy, and faith in a sort of cosmic consciousness between more joke-driven bits of old material. But Burns has the skills to keep an audience hanging on his every word, and their absorption was complete. He broke off for a moment to talk of his ailing dad (many comics seem to have them these days, unfortunately) which perhaps explains his more thoughtful mood. But he pulls out more gags to wrap up, and the applause is fulsome as he leaves the stage, triumphant.

• Although probably one of the lesser-known acts in the comedy arena, mime act The Boy With Tape On His Face went down a storm with his combination of inventive silent sketches and incomparable crowd work. Without speaking a word - because of that there tape - he nonetheless persuades his trusting marks to get on stage. The joy is in watching them try to follow the instructions he attempts to convey, not knowing what they have let themselves in for. Then there's the reveal when what's going on is suddenly exposed, and the effect usually brings the house – or tent – down.

• Adam Buxton gave a good example of how to fuse internet sketches with live performance, doing more than just introducing footage, but properly integrating conversation and clips, which are inspired. What can be funnier than an animated Gwen Stefani shitting bananas? Answer: Buxton reading out some of the YouTube comments his NWA received, in which he enlivened the abuse by giving each poster their own personality.

• Dylan Moran would headline most comedy stages, but at Latitude he's on mid-afternoon – and what a great treat it is. On great form from his new tour, he presents a classy catalogue of weary intolerance rife with perfectly-chosen imagery. His description of the party leaders is as damning and vivid than anything a cartoonist could conjure up, though the bulk of his set was about how impotent he feels as a middle-aged man, not respected by his wife, his children or society – or The Waterboys whose performance in the next field occasionally distracts him. Though he's certainly respected here. While he is resigned to admit he hasn't got any answers, he's a witty and astute observer of the futile human condition, and is here to warn the young people of the depressing fate that awaits them. At least we have performances like rhis to illuminate the misery.

• Last time I saw Paul Chowdhry, it was at a sparsely attended late-night show with an awkward audience at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, and it didn't go well. Here, in the afternoon he's in front of 1,000-plus of the most polite comedy-goers you could hope for...., and it didn't go well. He didn't crash, but polite smiles and occasional titters were the order of the day. Chowdhry's train of thought tends to be obvious - his joke about the News Of The World, for example, was that the staff had been sacked by voicemail - and there's little joy in the delivery. He can do accents, though, and does get some reaction for his exaggerated Pakistani, Chinese, or aggressive working-class London voices. But it's not particularly big or clever, and he seems so miserable without the strength of material to back it up

• After Steve Hughes, the decidedly less rock and roll Mark Watson. And as if to prove it, he lives out his music festival fantasy by perfroming a – quite poor – song he wrote about a bouncy castle. But then Watson is the professional underdog, acting so casually that it seems almost like he's on stage by accident, lowering our expectations. Of course, it turns out he's pretty good, which is well-received because he's established himself as one of us when the funnies start coming. And he has a special toy to play with today: a BSL interpreter for the deaf. Inevitably, he can't help but see how rude words are signed, or try to trick her with complex, surreal phrases. And Watson ends his set by borrowing one trick from the rock showmen, and venturing out into the crowd, though inevitably in a more low-key way than Matt Berninger from The National did on the main stage on Friday night. Still, the result is the same - the idea that something spontaneous and unique is happening.

• Crowds pour towards the comedy tent as Steve Hughes is on - but possibly because the rain has returned. Whatever the reason, they liked what they saw. Hughes might look like a heavy metal dropout - and there's good reason for that - but although he harbours strong views about global conspiracy, his set is very accessible, mostly about national stereotypes (especially his own Australian), British weather and mild incompetence, and Steve Irwin's death. He drops a few opinions as an aside, but generally this is rock-solid observational stuff.

• The sun has come out for Sunday... but the News Of The World hasn't. The News International phone hacking scandal is obviously occupying the team on the Early Edition, the topical panel show led by Marcus Brigstocke and Andre Vincent as a sort of antidote to Mock The Week. Brigstocke, especially, seems so vexed by the subject that he finds it hard to be funny too... though his analogy with the Human Centipede film is certainly unforgettable. Unfortunately – as its's not pleasant. But guests Carrie Quinlan and stand-up-turned-crimewriter Mark Billingham have brought some other stories, from Robbie Williams's grooming regime to Rose West's makeover... a subject about which Vincent made a joke so offensive he even outraged himself. But he contributed lots of stinging one-liners elsewhere. Later Robin Ince joined the panel with the Sunday supplements – as if the panel wasn't grumpy enough already. Thankfully, they are funny with it. Mind you, the running joke of singing ancient chocolate bar advertising jingles proved more popular than any liberal rants.

• The second unplanned blackout of the night hit Irish comedy hip-hop outfit Rubberbandits in the Cabaret tent, though with the aid of torches from the audience and a spare bullhorn (!) they riffed and bantered enough to keep the crowd from getting restless. Though little-known in the UK, these crude rappers are cult favourites back home, thanks to their YouTube hit Horse Outside, and a regular slot on RTE. Oh, and they wear balaclavas fashioned from Spar plastic bags. They are Ireland’s answer to Goldie Looking Chain, blurring the line between a parody of West Coast pikeys who got lucky, and actually being that very thing. And although the celebration of a certain sort of feckless working-class – well, let’s call it culture – is comedy of the broadest type, the tunes are infectious and the lyrics imbued with raw wit. Even the ones in praise of glue-sniffing and the IRA.

• Star of so many things, from Chris Morris collaborator to children’s TV, David Schneider is starting to dabble in stand-up, though he’s clearly still early days. In this …And Friends hour at Latitude he introduces guests, shows a few clips from YouTube and does a physical comedy character he first performed a couple of decades ago, when he was first starting out: a inept lunatic magician from some vague Eastern European land. This is wonderfully silly, as is the carefully-choreographed closing demonstration of ‘dad dancing’. The stand-up sections contain some good lines, too, although he has that slight distance often found when actors first attempt stand-up, not quite 100 per cent natural. Trying to merge videos with his monologues doesn’t quite come off either – even without the technical problems that blighted this performance, it makes for a stagey, fragmented experience. Of his friends. Spymonkey did some charmingly strange physical sketch from their Love In show, stand-up Joel Dommett charmed with festival tales, even if he was distracted by the baby in the front row, and the Cardinal Burns duo performed a great sketch about an ordinary Foot Locker worker being given the Parkinson treatment, and a more disorientating one about a management pep talk.

• I arrive slightly late for Jason Byrne’s set, and already he’s looking odd in his scarlet ringmaster’s jacket – the image for his new tour – and one of those hats that looks like a woodland creature. But it’s about to get a lot odder. He produces a pair of giant knickers – the fate, he says, that awaits every married man once his partner tires of sexy lingerie – and embarks on all manner of ribald high-jinks, many of them involving audience members. It’s slightly reminiscent of Freddie Starr (and, yes, that CAN be a good thing) in the way he creates utter chaos, with an exciting concoction of unpredictability, adventure and fun. A joy – and even when the power failed, Byrne has more than enough energy to keep the show going, whether anyone could hear him at the back or not.

• Running late, Charlie Baker does only minimal compering between the high of Abandoman's finale and introducing Danny Bhoy. Only problem is, hundreds of people are still trying to pick their way in or out of the tent, so the Scot has contend with an uninterested crowd in flux for a good few minutes. But as the room settles, the strength of Bhoy's performance shines through. His themes are often cliched – especially on the subject of Scottish drinking – but he nails them perfectly, and the delivery is exemplary. And a well-polished story about a gekko in his hotel room generates laughs on almost every line. Thoroughly entertaining for a general crowd like this one - as the rousing cheer at the end of his set proved.

• With their improvised raps, Abandonman are made for festivals. Old favourites like the 'what's in your pocket?' song and the ad-libbed musical about two audience members were real crowd-pleasers, with the addition of a full band gave it more welly. And a rap about odd jobs was helped by the punters who had been a Christmas elf and a professional zombie. There's a certain similarity to all their numbers, but for a 20-minute set they are a blast.

• A quiet reception for Holly Walsh. Her anecdotes, often playing up her ineptness _– especially given that she broke her arm at last year's Worthing Birdnab competiton – aren't that sharp, and although there are usually nice lines at the end of the, there's quite a lot of blether beforehand.

• Not strictly comedy, but They Might Be Giants, playing the main Obelsik Arena, are one of the wittiest bands around. A strong sense of ironic fun underpins all they do – and you can't get more ironic than starting a set on this rainiest of days with a song about the sun. Imperfect acoustics meant some iof their fast, detailed lyrics were lost, but there was no mistaking the wit in, for example, priming up a close-up of a guitarist... then enveloping him in smoke. And more bands really ought to incorporate sock puppets in their stage shows.

• Quintessentially Latitude act Robin Ince opens the stand-up in the comedy tent, with a rewarding mix of angry middle-aged liberal and more languid Stewart Lee-like stories where he leads you down a long philosophical idea, only to pull the rug away at the end. An act who sometimes throws too many ideas into his work that he doesn't develop them properly, he's on form here, with more polished material and an on-message crowd. Even the newer material, which doesn't quite work, is patiently received. Some strange camerawork on the big screens, though... for example when Ince acts out writing a letter, we get a close-up on his hand. Odd.

• As could have been predicted, the live Buzzcocks was something of a scrappy affair... though there was a good half-hour of strong material in the 90-minute session - so very much like a TV recording, then. The use of a live band enhanced the show, as did using the audience in a couple of the intro games, and as the packed crowd became more involved, the sense of fun was more palpable. Or perhaps it was just the hangovers wearing off. And along the way we learned that David O'Doherty once went to hospital with a Wagon Wheel stuck up his nose, that Mick Jagger has massive balls but a tiny penis, and that Paloma Faith once worked in a lingerie store, where she sometimes had to deal with used returns. Jupitus, Walsh and O'Doherty showed flashes of inspiration, while inviting the guy who stepped in for Preston after he had an on-air strop fior the ID parade was a nice touch. By the end, united by a common hatred of Bono, a party spirit had taken over, with 2,000 people singing along to Satisfaction as the comics trashed the set – but in quite a gentle way.

• A wet Saturday in a packed comedy tent starts with the first ever live Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Rob from Dog Is Dead and Seann Walsh on Phil Jupitus's team. Charlie Baker and Paloma Faith on Noel'a team. David O'Doherty hosts.

Some pictures from Friday:

• Now this is more like it! Shouty Nick Helm is doing what he promised from the outset and 'kicked this gig in the dick'. He growls out his 'six jokes' - which are OK, but his 'back of the net' style kickers are what sells it. A surprisingly jaunty song aimed the object of his desire cements his status as someone who demands attention. The aggressive, borderline unhinged persona, treating the audience like timewasting idiots, is the selling point, but the gags and observations are strongly written, too. It's something of a game of chicken with the audeince at times to see who will break first -such as his stupidly extended story about the sun and the wind, but the bitterness in the payoff is worth hanging around for. Rarely has a gig seemed more like a hostage situation, but this grizzly bear of a comic is the perfect festival act.

• Quite an unusual booking for Latitude, glamorous Vegas act Rita Rudner is playing to a sparsely-populated tent, and getting a lot of polite titters, occasionally more. Her 'differences between men and women' shtick, though beautifully crafted, is probably a bit too mundane and everyday for a festival where people are seeking to get away from normality and seek something new. Is this really the place for material about soft furnishings and assembling child's tricycles, almost overwhelmed by the band in the next area. The lines are pretty good, but context is all. 'You've been a very interesting audience,' she says before inviting questions - to almost no response. So then tries some new material from her notes. 'That deserved a better response,' was her sign off - possibly true.

• Chris Ramsay's innate charm has the large tent rapt. The stories are the everyday, from witnessing a shoplifting in his local supermarket to a strange encounter with a man on a canal towpath. It's all in the telling - in other hands this would appear slight, but he certainly has the gift of the gab, playing up his South Shields everyman persona, and hyping up the situations so the audience invest in the outcome of these seemingly slight encounters. And the Jeremy Kyle story takes the easy jabs at the daytime ogre into something nicely personal.

• Simon Munnery's subtle, wry stories are receiving a mixed reaction.... though his anecdote about a loose dog in North London's Clissold Park contains some typical lines of pithy beauty. And how many comedians take issue with Socratean philosophy and Greek myths in their sets... before slagging off Northampton for both its nomenclature and its residents. 'Some of these jokes require background reading,' he explains. Other sacred cows being slaughtered include Richard Dawkins and John Lennon. Smart, contrary, stuff.

• Finally at the festival... and Carl Donnelly is on stage chatting to a boy of about 12 - and immediately called him a 'cunt' for wanting to emulate Justin Bieber.

• Mark Steel has been quick to get into the festival spirit, tweeting: 'I'm off to Latitude festival now, where apparently it will rain for 3 days while we lie in mud and rats, writing poems and smoking Woodbines'.

• So, the festival begins – with comedy headliners Alan Carr, Omid Djalili and David O'Doherty; a live version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon discussion The Trip and stand-up and cabaret galore. We'll be updating this page frequently from Friday afternoon onwards – so if you can't make it, keep checking back to see how it's all going from a comedy point of view. And enjoy not being soaked to the skin...

Published: 15 Jul 2011