As most of our regular visitors must know by now the gorgeous, petite, cute yet feisty Lucy Porter is a great favourite with both of us, but it is not often we have had the chance to see Lucy as the host of a comedy line-up, although we are assured she does it often and seems to be totally in her element. Without having to fit in a set routine and follow a fixed subject, she is free to go where her audience takes her.  We were having so much fun we didn’t really want the other acts interrupting. She interacted with all points of the compass finding something interesting, strange or funny about many audience members. She interacts beautifully with all genders and even the young relocated Australian girl, whom Lucy ended up naming s*** came up at the end of the show complementing Lucy on the whole show and saying she was the best person on all evening and that her new nickname will forever be s***.  That was some complement for Lucy.

The first of these was Canadian Vince Fluke, fairly new to the UK he has been to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006. Being totally new to us we were not quite sure what we were getting. This personable young man came on with a cap, or old-fashioned ‘bunnet’ over his gorgeous long hair (personal taste). His material compares the relationships between the USA and Canada compared with that of Uk’s England and Scotland.  His life with his grandmother and the meeting between him and his new father, which he found in his mothers bedside drawer!! He is not wary of hard work, as he has signed up to be one of the workers setting up and striking music festivals over the summer, probably honing up his skills and finding more material.  I liked Vince but felt he lost us once or twice on his journey, it will be interesting to see how he develops.

Rab Brown the second act on could only be described as a typical Hairy highlander, except he doesn’t come from the highlands. His material covered some of the quaint hen-night customs that have developed in Scotland particularly adapted Fire-engines and  Ambulances. He admits to having written for the Kids Iconic TV star Basil Brush whose gags must end in ‘Boom Boom’.  Sadly he just wasn’t too successful using many of the forbidden phrases. He also covers his desperation in the sexual status, discussing the possibility of being desperate enough to go to certain gay nights!  We were in agreement that Rab has a certain niche in the comedy scene particularly in Scotland as some of our  non-British audience members kept having to have some sort of translations and as for the Norwegians in the company, who knows?  Look out for Rab and ladies if you are on the lookout for a cuddly partner who knows.

The third act of the evening was Gary Delaney, again described as cuddly. Gary’s machine-gun like delivery of one-liners, started in at a furious pace which you would not believe he could keep up for any length of time, but they just kept coming and coming. The one heckle he did get was passed over as having had a very different punchline but he just got started again.  What can we say?  This guy has the art of one-liners up to a very high standard although one or two were either dubious or tenuous to say the least. Well worth looking out for in the future.

Headline act was Jason Rouse this scary looking Canadian has more metalwork about his body you wonder if he is a cross between an urban warrior and a cyborg. He certainly has a good attempt to kill you with his dark and occasionally threatening humour.  One or two of the members of the audience were left wondering what was going on but most of the others found him absolutely hilarious, admittedly those round us were a kiwi and several Americans, I thought they were about to explode with laughter.  Although perhaps not quite my first choice in the comedy stakes I’ll give him a second and perhaps a third chance before deciding whether to terminate my viewing of this unusual comedian.

Once again we must both say we had a great night at The Stand only slightly marred by the fact that the lovely Wendy Wason had to back out of the Thursday show due to other commitments. It would have been interesting to see Wendy on this bill so those of you lucky enough to see Friday or Saturdays show will see Wendy. The staff at the Stand all work hard to ensure everyone has as good a night as possible and of course the food is excellent and superb value.  For information as to what is on at The Stand go to the website www.thestand.co.uk or for dates during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008 check out the official Fringe Festival site www.edfringe.com where you can find information on both Lucy Porter’s two Fringe shows and Wendy Wason’s Fringe show.