Edinburgh Comedy Gala 2011 in aid of Waverley Care
The Comedy Gala is always a comedy highlight of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and with the
Festival Hall selling out again this year, the atmosphere was electric as the festival’s top acts took to the stage. You can catch Imran’s performance THIS WEDNESDAY 31st August on BBC3 @ 9pm.
BBC Comedy Presents: Three@TheFringe gives audiences across the world a taste of the comedy and talent on show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In this clip Imran Yusuf talks about world peace and Joel Dommett endures Edinburgh’s cobbled streets. Exclusive Edinburgh comedy filmed live in 2011.
Catch this show’s debut broadcast: Monday 5th September @ 10.30pm on BBC3
The Noise Next Door is a high-energy improv troupe whose talents are impressively varied; ‘Their Finest Hour’ combines comic songs, sketch and even ballet, along with a healthy dose of cheesy puns. Even the methods by which they glean audience suggestions are assorted and ingenious; in addition to the usual calling-out of words, the audience is asked to draw pictures and, at one point, donate a text message as inspiration for the next routine. The collective is witty and sharp throughout, and a delight to watch. Its members clearly enjoy being on stage and their marvellously self-conscious style, which consists largely in taking the piss out of each other, has the audience in stitches. A very fine hour indeed.
Review by Lisa McNally. Fringe Guru. Saturday 20th August
The buzz surrounding Imran Yusuf as he Brings the Thunder continues and here’s a view from The Independent’s festival critc.
Imran Yusuf – Bring the Thunder
“Bursting with confidence and smooth patter” Independent
Elsewhere, Imran Yusuf, who was nominated for the Best Newcomer Award for his debut last year, cuts a slimline dash in white linen suit and patent black shoes. Born in Mombasa, he grew up in Hackney Downs, or, as he puts it, he was “born in the third world and upgraded to the ghetto”.
Bursting with confidence and smooth patter, “the spirit of Malcolm X in the body of Mahatma Gandhi” has strong words for those who believe that multiculturalism has failed. He points out the advantages of his diverse upbringing (you can swap the teams you support, depending on the sport) while poking fun at the stereotypes. Why do people always insist on asking him what his parents think of his chosen career, he asks. “My Mum doesn’t know I’m a stand-up, because my Dad doesn’t let her out of the house.”
Promoting their Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011 show ‘The Noise Next Door: Their Finest Hour’, here’s a sneak peak at the hugely entertaining improv you can expect with a boyband love song brought to you by The Telegraph.
Click Here to go to The Noise Next Door’s page on ComicVoice.com and see their Edinburgh show information for tickets, times and more.
“The beauty of the show is that, no two performances are the same, which keeps bringing people back”****Edinburgh Spotlight
Date of live review: Tuesday 9th Aug, ‘11
As the room gradually fills, and people take their seats, they are serenaded by two of the members from the group. Also up in the corner of the room, there are two puppets similar to Statler and Waldorf (from the Muppets) messing around with each other, and also anyone else that gets too close to them.
The light’s go down and instantly the 5 of them burst onto stage, with a cloud of white dust accompanying them – which hangs in the air for the first few minutes, leaving the place smelling of talcum powder. Dressed in their trademark attire of all black, each with different coloured ties. They start the show with a song about 5 of the audience members Perfect Partner’s, singing about random characters to a well choreographed dance routine. The song at the start gives the room a vibe and everyone is eager to see what’s next.
Suggestions from the crowd help them to carry out a rather strange mission to and from the moon to save Carol Vordermon, and then destroy her using avocado oil – yes it does get as crazy as this. A txt from a borrowed mobile phone acts as the conversation between an audience member (played by Tom) and in this show a suggested Charles Dickens. This left the audience asking ‘please sir, can we have some more’ – with this theme recurring throughout. Sound effects and spotlights are used very well to add to the txt message theme.
With lots of side games between members, with an indie song about a relationship with a robot to an encounter between Harry Potter and Voldermort talking about Barack Obama, the audience is kept entertained for the full hour – and it is definitely their finest. It is easy to see that they have been performing together for 6 years, as they bounce off each other, with small comments like “You know far too much about (Harry Potter) that topic” and have the audience laughing throughout.
The simple-ness of the 5 members standing in a lift, acting as 5 random fictional/ non-fictional characters at the end is a brilliant finale. The beauty of the show is that, no two performances are the same, which keeps bringing people back.
I haven’t actually seen every single improvisation comedy show at Edinburgh – there are an awful lot – but I will stick my neck out and say that if a well known brewery made improvisation comedy, it would be ‘The Noise Next Door’, consisting of five outrageously talented and engaging young men. My throat was sore with laughter by the end of the hour, which was certainly exceedingly fine!
As ever, the group improvised sketches, dances and jokes based on suggestions from the audience. As a result, every show is necessarily different but somehow equal. In the show I saw, we perhaps predictably met Harry Potter and Voldemort; observed a love triangle played out via text messages between Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Hannah, an audience member; saw the entire crew of Apollo 11 digging on the moon for cheese; found an ideal partner who was a seven feet tall, hunchbacked fishmonger with a liking for chicken goujons; and enjoyed a ludicrously hilarious ballet based on drawings from the audience involving dinosaurs, stick men, hot air balloons and castles. We also discovered that there are very few jokes about squirrels.
The five are talented songsmiths. Their songs are made up on the spot from ridiculous audience suggestions and not only scan and rhyme but also make a twisted sort of sense. I have seen several of their performances in the past and never cease to marvel at this skill. In this colour-coded, close-knit troupe, there simply is no weak link.
I can’t recommend them highly enough – but would suggest you take throat pastilles with you!
“The Noise Next Door are attractive, talented, quick-witted and quick-thinking…astonishing talent”****SG Fringe
Date of live review: Tuesday 9th Aug, ‘11
Improvised comedy, like anything, is not everyone’s cup of tea, although credit must be given to the pure skill, inventiveness and genius of those who manage to pull it off successfully. The Noise Next Door are in this improvisation elite, and their show this year really is their finest hour.
The pre-choreographed routines and song templates had the audience in stitches which is encouraging as these are some of the very few fixed features of the show which won’t change with each performance. Equally though, the excitement of improvised comedy such as this is that each performance will be different based on audience suggestions, and The Noise Next Door make the most of the bizarre suggestions thrown at them. The downside to this unpredictability is that during some of the more challenging and unusual scenes the performers have a tendency to break focus and laugh at themselves, although in one scene they go through intensive conditioning to beat this lack of control out of them! The only other negatives surrounding this show was that one or two sketches/songs perhaps went on a bit too long; and a couple of minor technical errors distracted from the astonishing talent being presented on stage.
The five boys of The Noise Next Door are attractive, talented, quick-witted and quick-thinking, and I don’t doubt that they have an extremely promising future both here at the Fringe and out on the wider circuit.
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Comic Voice Management is the exclusive artist management division of The Comedy Club Ltd, the UK's market leading comedy provider. Visit The Comedy Club.