Dan Mitchell ~ Free Egg

Although for the most part the venue is irrelevant to how good a show is, I have to say that the setting for this preview show was amazing. We were in a small bohemian courtyard, surrounded by some buildings of great character and the whole affair had a great feeling to it. I was unfortunately a little late (I’ll cover elsewhere as it’s irrelevant to this, suffice it to say my sense of direction failed me so horrendously I even used up my 15 minute Accidental Detour buffer!) but I was in perfect time to catch the first support act.

I won’t go into detailed reviews of them individually, but we were treated to four acts and all were good. Some far better than others, it has to be said, but all were deserving of being on the stage.

It was a little disappointing there wasn’t a bigger crowd, but the weather is as much a cause of that as anything else. I think with a small crowd, though, it’s probably quite hard to gauge just where the good laughs are – especially with a few who just laugh raucously at everything.

Obviously I am going to be quite vague with details… you will know from previous reviews I consider it something of a privilege to go to a preview show and as such it’s not my place to tell you exactly what to expect, rather to encourage you to go yourself… and if you get the opportunity you most certainly should!
If I were to make one criticism, it would be that Dan did the same thing all comedians do at these events and spent a lot of time constantly reminding us it will be better in future… we know that already so when things go awry, by all means tell us so we can laugh at your fallibility but then just move on – that said, I have read things written about preview shows in which the writer seems to expect the act to be going into them already word-perfect… they are idiots and shouldn’t be pandered to though!

So yes, there was a minor technical glitch and a there were a few backtracks as Dan realised he’d missed bits but that is very much a part of a preview show. From the perspective of testing material, I’d guess that makes it harder to tell if the laughs were coming from those jokes or the fact they had been forgotten – also taking the piece out of context it becomes more of a stand-alone joke than part of an act, so presumably those then get fewer laughs than they might as part of the natural flow but there was nothing I felt really didn’t work.

He made a huge dramatic entrance, which leaves you really thrown as an audience. It is difficult to know just what to expect as you see him arrive on stage as he does, especially if you have seen him before and know him to be one for just stepping up, delivering his set and leaving again. I do have photos but I’m not sharing them, because it is the unknown that makes it work so well. You just have to trust me that it was a good one… big ask I know, but I haven’t steered you wrong yet, have I?

There was a little of the material we have seen before from him, but that’s irrelevant really as there are some strong jokes that need a bigger audience than they may have seen already and they blended really well into the newer stuff. I do think he could get a bigger laugh out of the origin of the title. It’s quite creative and almost seemed as it were just dropped into the set, but that’s possibly only because things were out of order after the backtracking.

So if you are off to Edinburgh, make a point of adding Free Egg to your list – or if there is a preview near you, go… and report back please! Would be good to see how the show develops.