Rod Laver
28 March 1999
Last week there was a good movie on the box and the audience at the Comedy Cavern was a bit thin on the ground. Either last night’s movie wasn’t so hot, or maybe everybody’s learnt how to set their videos.
A healthy crowd was in attendance to catch a packed show featuring headliner Rod Laver, no, not that Rod Laver, the only balls on display last night being of the ping pong variety. Mouth stuffed, at first with one, and finally with five ping pong balls, Laver gave an outstanding performance of juggling and improvised comedy. Matthew Zuckerman
Apart from balls, Laver juggled with a flaming cigar (‘Not a good time to heckle me,’ he warned one bright spark down the front) and, for a finale, three fearsome looking knives while balanced on a wine bottle.
,br>Opening the show was Vic Lambrusco with a rough hewn selection of stand up and poetry. ‘It’s a bit soft heckling a poet,' he said to the same wag down the front. ‘Working up to string quartets, are you?’
Also on the bill were two women stand ups, Kerola Gajda (‘I may be from Doncaster but my parents are Polish so I am exotic’) and Frankie Gallagher, a self confessed ‘predatory lesbian from the People’s Republic of North Yorkshire.