Review of the big closing-day event by Jay Richardson

It’s a measure perhaps, of the confidence and rude health of Scottish comedy right now, that this showpiece event at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival featured almost exclusively local acts and comedians who've chosen to make Scotland their home.

Time was when this two-and-half-hour afternoon event, with perhaps the year's first glimpse of sustained sunshine outside, would have required bolstering with some imported and UK-wide established headliners. And while opener Zoe Lyons clearly fits that description, even she spent a significant chunk of her childhood in Glasgow.

Not that she discussed anything but the embarrassments of middle-age here. At 53, Lyons is a decidedly feckless aunt whose body is betraying her and whose zest for living dangerously and large is tempered by her fogeyish desire for ease and comfort.

Spinning some vivid, archaeological-based whimsy out of her long sock habit, she's compellingly physical when reeling off the reasons why she's foregoing cosmetic surgery, even if the degrading portrait she shares of herself is grotesquely funny.

Opining on the uselessness of aeroplane lifejacket whistles isn't the most original territory. But she clearly struck a chord with the matinee crowd with her observations on menopausal anxiety and midlife crises, her ill-advised purchase of a sleek, low-to-the-ground sports car prompting another display of effective physical goofing.

Making his King's Theatre debut, Chris Thorburn was endearingly modest about the relative size of his usual audiences. Yet the film buff soon hit a rich seam reflecting on Glasgow's schizophrenic nature as shooting location for a recent slew of Hollywood blockbusters, emphasising the disparity between the glamour and nightmarish subject matter of these crime-heavy movies. 

Delivering one of the show's best received sets, he cannily went ultra-local, talking about the nicer and rougher areas of the city and its camp embrace of all things pantomime, but set within the context of them only being freshly discovered by a friend from Texas. Adopting these bewildered eyes for this established culture, he eked out its more unique, ridiculous aspects.

Up next, Viv Gee shared some similar concerns to Lyons, having hit her 50s and discovered a lack of empathy and tact. Her perspective is that of a heterosexual woman in a long-term relationship trying and failing to make her husband jealous after even the tiniest expression of male attention, while safe in the knowledge that his lack of imagination when buying gifts betrays his fidelity.

Drolly witty on the suitability of various fashion labels for a lady of her vintage, Gee sets herself apart by boldly and artistically closing on a pithy poem about ageing, boiling down life's major transitions into egotistical demands and complaints. 

Such has been her impact as a stand-up tutor, bringing through the likes of this show's host Susie McCabe, Richard Gadd, Mark Nelson, Des Clarke, Jay Lafferty and Des McLean, that she also received a special award here honouring her contribution to comedy.

So You Think You're Funny? finalist Ayo Adenekan has a pretty rare profile, being a black bisexual of Nigerian heritage living in the overwhelmingly white city of Edinburgh. Unfortunately for his showbusiness ambitions and Dr Who fandom however, he's not quite as unique as he first reckoned. 

His playful routine about civil rights history is currently a bit blunt and heavy-handed. Yet he's generally quite arch, with an impish cheek, constantly switching between projected assurance and insecurity, his identity-based set a memorable calling card.

Kim Blythe similarly contends with preconceptions, not so much from having started as online comic, having made the leap to performing live pretty seamlessly. Rather, in the recollections of some of her previous jobs. After the misogynist, homophobic and body shaming abuse she received whilst working in a pub, she can at least by wry about it now, given the inexplicable blinkeredness of her abuser's inability to see a kindred spirit. 

Sacked from another role for playing the fool to a degree that couldn't be ignored, her lack of suitability for a 9 to 5 has the implied benefit that she's at least found her vocation with comedy, her dryly exasperated routines recalling the storytelling ease of McCabe.

Closing the first half was MC Hammersmith, the nom de rhyme of Will Naameh, the nebbish improv rapper from West London, long-time based out of Edinburgh. Disclaimed by McCabe beforehand as 'something a bit different' and personally acknowledging afterwards that the crowd believed he'd be 'shit', he hardly needs the bar lowered to impress with a quick hit of one of his trademark, ad-libbed performances. 

As spesh acts go, Hammersmith has his limits across a full show. Yet simply making lines up on the fly, based on objects the front rows have about their person, his shtick requires some startling feats of imagination and he ushered in the interval with palpable energy. 

Up first after the break, Canadian import Kate Hammer has really burnished her stage persona in recent years, arriving at a confident, front-foot attitude that's just the right side of arrogant. The sass is kept in check perhaps by her concern for her homeland being coveted by Donald Trump. And her cheery awareness that after living in Glasgow for five years, she's only dodged its violent reputation so far.

As a pansexual, she combines a certain exotica and worldly wise air with an admission that she's none-too-choosy in her partners, contrasting men's desperation with the more critical reviews she receives from women. Coolly casual and matter-of-fact about sex, the act-outs are frenetic and clownishly graphic as she gets down to business while multitasking.

Stephen Buchanan is that rare comic who's almost as devoted to sketch and character as he is to stand-up. Having those other outlets is perhaps why his stand-up is so resolutely everyman – that of the little guy from the shithole part of Glasgow, who'll put up the briefest show of resistance when threatened by a mugging, but immediately, amusingly fold with an absolute lack of conviction and self-respect.

His recent marriage and struggle to get onto the housing ladder is the prompt for some dark if fatally resigned material about inheritance and prospects for young people. He notes that relationships are tough but responds to his partner's philosophical enquiries with blokeish panic, blurting a wild variety of answers in the pathetic hope of an easy life. 

Reigning SYTYF? title holder Alana Jackson is a raw prospect, the London-based Glaswegian having a weariness beyond her years and a strong stage presence that outstrips her material. Her routines about being unable to fathom moderate drinking, escape rooms and the appeal of ten-pin bowling play to the gallery a bit, inviting the Scottish crowd to chuckle at poncey, affluent Londoners. 

Regardless, the jobbing actor has a nascent, telegenic star quality. A scenario in which her younger, bar-tending self fails to appreciate the import of the phrase 'asking for Angela' stretches credulity. But it's effectively executed for laughs at her own naivety. 

Connor Burns, likewise, contrasts effete, middle-class London manners with the gritty realism of a Glaswegian character speaking his mind.

 Although there's some truth to the cliché, of the BBC seeking their vox pop interviews with the well-heeled in the English metropolis, yet finding the loosest cannon they can when reporters venture north of the border, Burns hones in on the signifiers of a single story with all the subtlety of a brick heaved through a window. 

Still, his depiction of a 'jakey', a more affectionate label than the bluntly dismissive English 'junkie', is rich in its descriptive phrasing. And his physical recreation, with the portrayal of the man's streetwise, super-intelligent dog is particularly memorable. This fast rising, touring act seldom subverts stereotypes. But he understands what chimes with audiences.

Penultimately, McCabe delivered an extended set after her hosting duties, recalling her heart attack last year. Despite some admission of personal culpability and the general Glaswegian tendency to be wise and voluble after the fact where health is concerned, she has strikingly turned her travails into a celebration of lesbian can-do resourcefulness. 

From the gay paramedics who put her in the ambulance, to her own refusal to be fobbed off by garage mechanics, McCabe struck an abiding prideful note in a show full of queer performers.

Finally, there was the small matter of the awarding of the Billy Connolly Award to the comic deemed to have best encapsulated Glasgow's spirit and sense of humour this year, with Rosco McClelland capping a breakthrough six months by taking home the coveted gong.

Although these annual presentations have settled into a predictable pattern, with Elaine C Smith paying tribute to the festival's organisers, followed by the Big Yin congratulating the winner via a video link from Florida, it remains a moving sight to see the ailing but still twinkling legend recite a snippet of the winner's stand-up back to them. 

Sunday afternoon shows of this length tend to become an endurance test. But this GICF gala featured an especially strong bill, capped by that heartwarming final moment.

Review date: 31 Mar 2025
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson
Reviewed at: Glasgow King's Theatre