Sunday 22 March 2015

Stu and Garry, The Stand

Every Sunday (outside of the Festival weeks) there is a free comedy show called "Whose Lunch is it Anyway?", starting at 1.30 and featuring the same two guys week in, week out.  Stu Murphy and Garry Dobson have been performing improv together for well over a decade.  If they are not quite telepahtic by now then they are the next best thing.  Their interaction and understanding is incredible and a joy to watch unfold.

In their show they play a number of games, based around suggestions from the audience, and improvise a comedy sketch form that basis.  They have several alternative scenarios in their bag of tricks, and know exactly what will, or will not, work as the basis for laughs.  For instance today, in the game they call MacGyver, they asked for a crisis to resolve, and two household objects which they could use in their heroics.  Which led to a scenario where there was no more Irn Bru and they had only a colander and a cat litter tray from which to improvise a solution.  Most times that would result in the pair of them creating some dialogue that led to them saving the world.  But the intervention of a cry from the baby at the back of the room (who would become a recurring theme over the afternoon!) had Stu narrating the tale in the style of a child's story, while Garry mimed the actions being described.  Which is why we ended up watching a fortyish man with long hair and a scruffy beard pretending to climb a burning ladder and put out a fire by shaking cat litter and poo from a colander.  You had to be there....

And that's how it goes.  You never really know what might happen next, and neither do they, except that it will be funny.  I don't think I've ever come out of one a Stu and Garry show without having hurt myself from laughing too much.  This is a show you could easily go to see every week and never get bored with it.  And the club does some decent beer and food too.

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