Comedian brings character to life in laugh-out-loud gig

Aug 5 2010 The Journal

Simon Donald, Dan Willis, George Zach and Kai Humphries, The Three Tuns, Gateshead

SITUATED on Sheriff's Hill in Gateshead and long established as one of the region's premier live music venues, The Three Tuns has always had a reputation for booking big-name artists.

Looking to expand upon this, the inaugural Three Tuns Comedy Club Night was no exception and starred one of Newcastle’s favourite merchants of filth, Simon Donald – best known for his involvement with the legendary Viz comic.

Despite having recently moved to London, where he now makes his living as a full-time stand-up comedian, Simon, who was previewing some material from his Edinburgh show, has not forgotten his Geordie roots, as was proven by his current comedy alter-ego.

The unfortunately named (as those in the audience were soon to find out) Barry Twyford is the stuff of nightmares.

Capable of striking fear into the hearts of men at 30 paces, Barry is like the trainspotter from hell. He’s the kind of market researcher responsible for giving his fellow census-takers less street cred than a charver dressed in last year’s Toon top ... and twice as obnoxious.

The half -hour routine consisted of a string of extremely profane and outrageously funny questions aimed at random audience members, who shook with fear whenever singled out for attention.

As funny a creation as anything Simon has brought to print, Barry Twyford is destined to become a comedy legend.

Our host for the evening was Dan Willis, co-founder of The Grinning Idiot Comedy Club, who is an extremely funny guy. Add this to young Greek comedian George Zach’s accounts of learning to deal with life among the great unwashed while struggling to master the Geordie language and opening act Kai Humphries’ scream-out-loud revelations on the perils of predictive text messaging and you have a night of pure comedy gold.

Paul M Sinclair