19 - 21 November 2007: John Ryan, Paul Tonkinson and Pierre Hollins
Record CH-uckling was the order of the day in November as over 200 of you packed the Burgbachkeller and Maiers over the two nights. At this rate, we'll have to add an extra date in Zug and keep Zurich in its midweek slot... (Hmmm, not a bad idea…)It was a warm welcome back to John Ryan, who was responsible for the first ever joke spoken on a CH-uckles stage in March of this year and was here again to show just how good a compere he really is. His repertoire somehow enables him to make jokes about all 194 countries in the world. Bosnia and India were on the menu this time around (CH-uckles audiences seem to be getting ever more international...), with special mention for our neighbours north of Lake Constance.
As is often the case, we were lucky enough to have two genuine headline acts. Pierre Hollins (affectionately known as "Frog Boy") had the distinction of opening Zug and closing Zurich, while Paul "celebrity northerner" Tonkinson did vice versa. Pierre had brought his guitar along with him and had the audience rocking in the aisles – well he would have done, had we not had to fill the aisles with extra seating to get everyone in at the Burgbachkeller. He put the fun back into fundamental with his terrorist-ist (-ist...-ist...) song, while giving his ex-girlfriend the full distortion pedal treatment (so much so that he managed to break it!)
The laughter kept coming after the break, particularly with the trademark joke competition. John had an innovative way of deciding the winner in Zurich – after the usual audience voting (shouting out "Liechtenstein!" for the good jokes and "that joke is equally valid" for the bad, sorry, equally valid ones – political correctness, eh? Gotta love it…), he allowed a pregnant Ch-uckler's baby to choose who the lucky t-shirt recipient would be. Fun for young and old alike, even the as yet unborn…
Then it was Tonkinson's turn to give us his own take on parenting and the seemingly Teutonic concept of "tidying up as you go along" to placate the missus, before delving into the joys of sex, Northern-style (that's Huddersfield as opposed to Schaffhausen). The audience were in tears by the end, not least because of the mental image they had of his poor, long-suffering wife…
A roaring success therefore, and as promised at the top of this page, we'll be back, bigger than before and twice as mid-weeky. Dates for your diaries (assuming you get one for Christmas) are Monday 25 February at the Burgbachkeller in Zug, Tuesday 26 February at a secret venue, again in Zug (!) and Wednesday 27 February at Maiers in Zurich.
Thanks to all (200!) of you who came. And to those who decided to watch England-Croatia instead, well… sälber schuld as they say over here! John Ryan will be back, and he'll want a note from your mums to explain your absence…
