A little over a week ago, I discovered Michael McIntyre was planning to do warm up shows for his new tour at the Manchester Comedy store. Tickets were only £10, but it was very much a "get them if you can" situation as he was only planning to do a few nights to test out some of his new material. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to get 2 tickets, so last night the other half and I trundled off to Manchester to go and watch the discount show. We've both seen Michael McIntyre before when he did a show in Liverpool, and I really enjoy his live shows. I personally think he is very different live to the exaggerated persona he has on TV, but I know he's a bit of a Marmite comedian.
Before the show started, we had a bit of an issue involving a demonic goose. We'd parked near the Comedy Store, but decided to get something to eat on Oxford Road. The quickest way was to walk alongside the Manchester Ship Canal. Ordinarily, this is a pretty uneventful walk, but for some reason we angered a goose who refused to let us, or anyone else for that matter, walk past. We ended up having to run past it as it attempted to bite us! There was one guy who nearly fell off his bike because of it, and a student who escaped by waving a Sainsbury's bag at it. I can only assume it had made a nest nearby, but we couldn't see anything to confirm this.
Still, after fighting off a goose and getting something to eat, we settled into the most uncomfortable seating known to mankind to watch the show. The show was very good. My favourite part was Michael doing an impression of the pre-teen girls on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding dancing. There was quite a bit of audience participation in terms of people shouting things out, and people being singled out to include them into jokes. I wouldn't necessarily say he was heckled, when the most offensive thing shouted was "Michael, I bloody love you" by a drunk guy a few rows in front of us. You couldn't really tell that it was a warm up show / trial show as it just felt like an intimate gig. As the venue was quite small, he was able to interact more and by the end I was satisfied that I'd seen something unique as so much of the show wouldn't have worked with another audience. I would have happily paid £20 a ticket for the material that we saw, and for the way the show was carried out.
So far, I think this may be my favourite goal of the 1001 days as I'm not even up to my first 100 days and have already seen 3 very different comedy shows and none have disappointed me in any way, shape, or form.