Stephen K. Amos - Live
When you think of Cornwall perhaps you think of sandy beaches and blue skies. Well when Stephen K. Amos came to Truro he found concrete everywhere and it was absolutely chucking it down with rain and hail! Could a stand-up comedian bring the "Feelgood Factor" to this rather damp crows in the Hall For Cornwall?
As the lights dimmed the crowd hushed in expectation as Stephen informed us that Truro is an anagram of U R Rot and asked us to welcome the support act Seann Walsh to the stage. Seann entertained us for roughly 25 minutes with observations about life, and the plight of smokers following the Smoking Ban in public buildings. He is immensely funny, although there were a lot of unnecessary swears in my opinion, although that is often par for the course with Stand-Up Comedy. I would look forward to seeing more of his material.
After a short interval it was on with the main show. With disco balls rotating on the floor the music started and a figure started dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies". This was quite a start! It wasn't long before the music was stopped and Stephen started his routine. Stephen is a polished performer and there are a lot of gags in the evening that you would find on his "Find The Funny" DVD, delivered in a hilarious fashion. However he also does like to interact with his audience, and when he jumps down off the stage you know that some people are going to have a night to remember and you just hope that it's not you!
There's a very fine line between being funny about someone in the audience and being offensive. This is a line that Stephen occassionally edges towards, but doesn't quite cross! A lot of Stephen's jokes are about the colour of his skin and the way things have changed for afro-english people in culture and society. You know that if a white person said any of these things there would be outrage!
Stephen's narrative wanders around a bit, sometimes he is interrupted by people shouting things out, other times he seems to get distracted by something else, but he still pulls the whole thing together well. I think he truly brought the Feelgood Factor to those people in the near capacity audience last night. I went home with a smile on my face about some of the issues that Stephen had brought to mind and maybe he even had an effect on the weather because it had dried up completely!
Stephen K. Amos still has tour dates around the country for the rest of February and if you can catch him live you will not regret it. For a full list of dates read the description section of our "Find The Funny" Review.