The title lends itself well to the routine Michal Grobelny has prepared. With no jokes, no punchlines, and a lot of circular meandering on a small stage, I was left feeling dizzy and confused, unsure whether I was Waiting for Godot at drama school or had involuntarily beached myself on the Island of Postmodern Microphone Stand Shamanism.

It was a self-confessed atrocity of error – with the added misfortune of a reviewer and two filming documentary-makers in the audience. Grobelny’s quip regarding two girls who didn’t laugh as they sat in paying attendance at his gig the night before’the ones he therefore told to ‘Fuck off back where they came from’ – probably didn’t encourage any further sympathy from his captive audience.

A hard venue to create a fuzzy love-in-and-let’s-laugh atmosphere, the upstairs room at Pony is somewhat cold and unforgiving as a comedic site. Such conditions surely present an added challenge and anxiety for any comedian performing there, and as a reviewer this must be taken into account.

(A growing congregation of leather-clad punk-rockers on ground level, impatiently awaiting their sound check as the comedy show ran overtime, greeted all in attendance upon our prompt departure from the venue. I hope you made it out alive, Michal.)

Redeeming potential exists however for a strong and powerful routine based on Grobelny’s intelligent use of black, sideways thinking, and stream of consciousness delivery. We shall look forward to his improvement next year.

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