Live at Brighton Dome - Review: featuring Suzi Ruffell and Joe Lycett

Live at the Brighton Dome has carved out a nice little niche for itself, a comedy night without any duff or rookie acts and many a juicy headliner.It tends to be a safe bet on talent alone, but the fact that it's competitively priced and in the comfort of the Dome makes it even moreattractive.

Accordingly, the attendances seem to be on the up and the latest show was packed out upstairs and downstairs.

The Live at the Domers are not only many in number, they're also the type of crowd that comics would love to clone and spread out among the leisure centres and theatres of the UK.

This weekend's happy mob (in the loosest terms possible) were so utterly up for it, that within the opening moments of the show when they laughed heartily when the MC's mic didn't work,and cheered like their mortgages had been paid off when the fault was rectified.

That said, they (or at least the front-row) somewhat let down the aforementioned host Alex Haddow in the audience participation stakes.

And after a few minutes of gamely scouting around comedic blind alleys, she lost her appetite for crowd work for the rest of evening and instead gave us more material than most hosts, the best being some good lines about English nationalists.

Saturday's roster of comics was heavy on charisma, and Michael Akadiri was loud and likeable.

The comic/junior doctor (currently on sabbatical from his surgical training) was snappy and engaging.

There was some good stuff about the horrors of childbirth and the trauma of baldness (including the idea of a palliative barber providing 'end of hair care' and he deserves props for getting laughs from CPR and a do-not-resuscitate order.

Suzi Ruffell proved even more compelling and delivered the best set of the night.

The brilliant and hugely expressive performer stormed through some sharp material with wide-eyed energy and an exceptionally authentic air.

In a recent interview she said it's taken her years to find her voice, but it's clear, she's now in a fantastic place with her craft and she's able to take advantage of her genuine charm and stage ability.

Blessed with cheeky chops and all manner of contorted faces, she added oodles of personality to routines about her young daughter, her Portsmouth family, and the 'giggery pokery' of a surgical smear.

She's now living in BN1, so hopefully there'll be plenty of local performances, and if there's any justice in this funny old world we'll see much much more of her on the telly and beyond.

Joe Lycett followed show-stealing Suzi, and obviously isn't short of charisma, and seemed perfectly happy on and off the Dome stage (until he broke a piece of it when climbing back on stage after a brief excursion into the crowd).

He's obviously more often seen on TV these days (fighting the good fight against scammers and hotfooting the globe in Travel Man) and he admitted he hadn't done stand up for a while but was blissfully happy and in love with a new girlfriend.

Following on from a fun retelling of a text exchange with Harry Styles, he was very much on familiar ground reading a mock coming of age tale involving a journey fromBirmingham to London, Robert Peston and a prawn sandwich.

After the physicality and animation of Ruffell, it was a bit of a gear-change, but the Andre 3000-soundtracked tale was gently amusing and strangely relaxing…

Prior to the gig we’d all suffered the disappointment of headliner Rob Delaney’s last-minute cancellation due to changes to his filming schedule.

Phil Wang (who himself could recently be seen in a nice cameo in the recent big screen hit Wonka) was an admirable replacement and began with a barnstorming/barn-destroying opening gag about rice.

It was the sort of brilliant observational gag you’ll find yourself repeating and one that I won’t spoil by blabbing about it here.

The British-Malaysian stand-up has seen a steady rise in his profile and has become a familiar name on bigger shows, and comedy festivals.

He was extremely well-received on the night, riding on the laughs of the zinger opening gag with some Anglo-Asian laughs, including the peculiarities of a Borneo childhood and traditional Chinese medicine (an assortment of ‘animal parts and hunches’).

The next time around it’ll be Live at Brighton Festival on Thursday May 23 with Joel Dommett, Desiree Burch and Spencer Jones , and more to be announced.