110% LAGOM

And so, LKPG HA HA! drew the curtain on its first successful season at Café M and without feeling smug, it’s been a pretty fantastic season.

Last night was not without the usual stresses, not least because of the snow. The two headline acts were planning to come down from Stockholm by car  and mid-morning I got a phone call from Eric Löwenthal to see if it would be OK for them to come by train instead. For a fraction of a microsecond I thought: ‘There goes the night’s profits’, but as I was standing looking out of the window at the blizzard, I was honestly thankful that they had not decided to forget the whole misadventure of leaving the warm comfort of their own homes.

The train was inevitably delayed… but only by half an hour, so I slipped and skidded down to the station to get them, and we actually managed to start on time. I’m always grateful when an audience turns up at all, but this was the second time this season where I was partly amazed and totally thankful that people had braved the weather (we had torrential rain in October, but that didn’t affect audience numbers much either). When the show began, all the chairs were taken and several were standing. So on with the show…

I kicked off with some new stuff about getting a review (or at least commented on You Tube)  that went down well, then Palle tried some new material ‘mainly about sex’ as he proudly announced. It was a real insight into the mental and physical workings of a 48 year old man. The audience were as shocked as I was but my only concern was the woman laughing hysterically in the front row. Next up was LKPG HA HA!’s latest find, a student called Joel Berglund. For his third gig he did brilliantly and it’s just a shame he’s off to Prague for 6 months as part of his studies as it would be good to see him play the club in the spring.

The first half ended with star of tomorrow Martin Lagos who manages to be both cool and uncool (but in a cool way). His routine about how he deals with workmen, how his girlfriend deals with workmen and how workmen deal with him is hilarious.

The second half saw queer comic Pernilla Hammargren making us laugh at the complications of raising a child with two mummies (She has opted for the male role as it involves less work and higher pay). Pernilla was very funny and it was nice to have an antidote to almost exclusively straight stand up scene.

The headline act was Eric Löwenthal who has been on the stand up scene for  about ten years. As the last headliner of the last show before Xmas, he didn’t let the audience down and as usual it was a joy to watch the waves of laughter rippling through the audience. He was very good indeed and has a sympathetic character onstage which the audience cannot fail to warm to.

Show over and although there wasn’t much time to chat before the icy train back to Stockholm it was a pleasure to chew the fat for ten minutes with Pernilla, Martin and Eric in the austere surroundings of Linköping station.

Back up to club to tidy up. Then beers, hot chocolates and late night tales with Palle, Johannes and the girls from Café M.

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Tags: Comedy, Gigs, Linköping, Stand Up

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