Milton Jones And The Temple Of Daft
Last night, Wolfie and I went to Harrogate to see Milton Jones's new show, Milton Jones and the Temple of Daft. I had never seen Milton live before, my only experience of him coming from Mock The Week, where he seems to be quite anti-Leeds. Leeds was replaced with Huddersfield last night and the show was pretty fantastic.
Based on a loose narrative of Milton wanting to become an archaeologist again and finding a treasure map on a train that would help him achieve this end, the story ended up in a surreal hour of puntastic jokes, some of which went down better than others. There were a few that you really had to think about, and yet delayed laughter from some of the audience fuelled the comedy atmosphere. Teachers got a heavy mention. However, my favourite parts of the gig were away from the story, when he was just delivering deadpan joke after deadpan joke. This was the highlight and when the show really picked up momentum, with the audience invited to request topics on which he could make a joke (probably lined up of course but he has so many I imagine this is quite straightforward).
There were two support acts, the first being Milton himself in the guise of his great uncle, who featured in the story in the second half, and a new comic called Nish Kumar. His stuff was far more edgy, particularly on race, than Milton's and the parochial largely white elderly audience in Harrogate were somewhat perplexed at times. Personally I thought he was very good, particularly his bits on why Monopoly is not a suitable board game for children and his Friday night experience on a train travelling home with an office drunk. Check him out if you can.
Milton's "great uncle" was the first act on the stage and did a wonderful sequence with flags, relating it to politics and identity. The uneasy pregnant silence when the EU flag was raised - no one had any idea how to react - was very illuminating while focusing on world issues using the flags and narrating them using a high pitched voice was a very good way of sending them up. This bit also provided a little introduction to the narrative of the second half tale, with the audience again being invited to make suggestions on some of the story's details.
I think the whole gig went down well and we certainly enjoyed it, but then I've always been a fan of crap puns. Harrogate looked beautiful in the February darkness, with bright lights draped over many of the trees, making me wonder why this is just a Christmas thing in other towns and cities. It really brightened the place up and made it far more inviting on a cold winter's evening. Apart from this, we tried the new chipotle chicken sub from Subway which was particularly pleasant and headed home after our first, but nowhere near our last, comedy gig of 2015.
Based on a loose narrative of Milton wanting to become an archaeologist again and finding a treasure map on a train that would help him achieve this end, the story ended up in a surreal hour of puntastic jokes, some of which went down better than others. There were a few that you really had to think about, and yet delayed laughter from some of the audience fuelled the comedy atmosphere. Teachers got a heavy mention. However, my favourite parts of the gig were away from the story, when he was just delivering deadpan joke after deadpan joke. This was the highlight and when the show really picked up momentum, with the audience invited to request topics on which he could make a joke (probably lined up of course but he has so many I imagine this is quite straightforward).
There were two support acts, the first being Milton himself in the guise of his great uncle, who featured in the story in the second half, and a new comic called Nish Kumar. His stuff was far more edgy, particularly on race, than Milton's and the parochial largely white elderly audience in Harrogate were somewhat perplexed at times. Personally I thought he was very good, particularly his bits on why Monopoly is not a suitable board game for children and his Friday night experience on a train travelling home with an office drunk. Check him out if you can.
Milton's "great uncle" was the first act on the stage and did a wonderful sequence with flags, relating it to politics and identity. The uneasy pregnant silence when the EU flag was raised - no one had any idea how to react - was very illuminating while focusing on world issues using the flags and narrating them using a high pitched voice was a very good way of sending them up. This bit also provided a little introduction to the narrative of the second half tale, with the audience again being invited to make suggestions on some of the story's details.
I think the whole gig went down well and we certainly enjoyed it, but then I've always been a fan of crap puns. Harrogate looked beautiful in the February darkness, with bright lights draped over many of the trees, making me wonder why this is just a Christmas thing in other towns and cities. It really brightened the place up and made it far more inviting on a cold winter's evening. Apart from this, we tried the new chipotle chicken sub from Subway which was particularly pleasant and headed home after our first, but nowhere near our last, comedy gig of 2015.