Best for bilingual laughs
What Open-mic night
Where Giggle Bar (free)
Who Beijing Comedy Open Mic
When 8pm, first and third Thursdays of the month
Held in the appropriately named Giggle Bar, Beijing Comedy Open Mic’s twice-monthly chucklefests are open to all in the city. ‘Chinese and English performances are what we’re all about,’ says organiser Emma Lin. ‘In fact, we encourage performances in any language!’ The rules are simple: do a five-minute set and get free drinks all night.
The night we attended was ably hosted by Paul Creasy (pictured below), a slick Brit with jokes as dry as the Beijing air. Self-deprecating one-liners are his forte ? ‘I’m Paul Creasey, and I’m sorry about that’ ? as is the odd risqué quip (‘I think the real problem with Hitler…’) and jabs at student enclave Wudaokao, where he lives: he jokingly refers to it as Wudao-chou during the set ? a pun on the Chinese word for ‘smelly’.
Of the several Chinese performers that were brave enough to stand up and perform in their second language, Jeff Shi was our favourite of the night. His unassuming, almost humble manner and innocent grin juxtaposed nicely with his racy material ? sexual puns and peculiar Chinese curse words all got a seeing to from this baby-faced assassin.
But our favourite performer of the night was American David Fertitta; an up-and-comer, relatively new to the scene. His languid, confident delivery ? himself stifling back laughter as he paints bizarre situations and reams off perfectly executed observational comedy ? is great fun to watch. His diatribe on China’s lunar programme being sponsored by Yanjing beer, and how other companies could learn from this strange arrangement ? ‘The next US invasion of the Middle East, sponsored by Coors Lite’ ? was a joy. As was his observation, made at a different night, that although China might be behind other nations in some areas of technology ? car production, space exploration and so forth ? it is light-years ahead in what he calls ‘broom technology’.
Being an open-mic night, the dozen or so performers were of varying quality, but only a couple were so bad that they made us want to poke our eyes out with the tiny wooden sticks holding our club sandwich together. A frustrated first-timer yelling, ‘Do you understand? This is my joke!’ was a particular low point.
Still, the small but enthusiastic crowd laughed loudly throughout the night and encouraged those struggling on stage with big whoops and applause ? the true spirit of an open-mic event. Giggle? By the end of the night we were full-on guffawing.
One to watch David Fertitta
Steal this ‘In America there are lots of superheroes ? Batman, Spider-Man, Superman ? but we have superheroes in Beijing, too! Just look at any map of the city, we have Dongzhimen, Chaoyangmen… And there’s a guy who destroys everything ? Andingmen.’ ? Jeff Shi.
