Latest news with #HotWaterComedyClub
Scotsman
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Susan isn't sitting on the fence over support for Palestinians- Vladimir McTavish
Susam Riddell at the Hot Water Comedy Club With only a week to go until the start of this year's Fringe, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Comedians will do anything for a few column inches at this time of year. However, nobody has ever planned to find themselves up in court on a terrorism charge. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... But that is what happened to a friend of mine, Glaswegian stand-up Susan Riddell on Monday. Last weekend, along with two others, she allegedly drove a van into the fence of arms manufacturer Leonardo in North Edinburgh, in protest against Israeli atrocities in Gaza. The company, formerly BAE Systems, has been alleged to be supplying weapons to the Israeli Defence Force. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Susan has been charged with malicious mischief and contravening the Road Traffic Act. However, as this could be interpreted as supporting Palestine Action, she is also charged under the UK Government's draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act. Photographs of the incident are on the BBC News website. The van has crashed into the perimeter fence of the Leonardo complex from the next door car park at Morrison's on Ferry Road. One panel of the fence has been slightly dislodged. We all remember the images of the bodged attack on Glasgow Airport from 2007. A car rammed into the front of the terminal building at high speed and burst into flames, engulfing the driver in fire, only for the guy to be dragged out of the inferno and given a sound kicking. That was a terrorist incident. Susan's incident took place next the Click & Collect pick-up point. I'd be willing to bet more damage has been done to that fence by careless drivers. This is not so much taking a sledgehammer to break a nut as taking a pneumatic drill to open a pistachio. Riddell has now had to cancel her Fringe show, due to her bail conditions preventing her from entering Edinburgh. Did the judge think she was planning on driving into another fence? In Edinburgh during the festival, where hour-long traffic jams are the norm? She may have had to cancel her 2025 Fringe, but Susan Riddell has one hell of a story to tell next year. That show has already written itself. Personally, I will drive through a fence to see it.
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Comedian Paul Smith: ‘I'm not nasty enough.'
At the Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool, Paul Smith's standup double-header feels like a pop star's homecoming. Women are wearing his tour T-shirts as dresses and the bar is half a dozen deep with fans hoping to get roasted by the local comic famous for his audience takedowns. There are first-daters, girls' night outs, lads' night outs, tourists, locals, couples, mothers and their grownup sons clamouring for a spot on the front row. On stage, as on social media where his viral show clips from this venue led to international, sell-out-arena fame, Smith is as sweary as they come. During his 75-minute, banter-dense sets, little is out of bounds. So when I sit across from him backstage before the gig, in a room named in his honour, it's a surprise to find a quiet family man who, beyond the moments he relays jokes to me, barely utters a swear word. 'People get really disappointed when they meet me in real life,' says the 42-year-old. 'I'm really quiet. I'm never the biggest personality in a group.' Superficially, his path to comedy appears to have mirrored a modern road to music stardom: from YouTube fame to arena-size deals. In reality, however, he spent 12 years grafting before his first clips went viral on Facebook in 2017. He specialises in crowd work, which is particularly well-suited to bite-size online videos. He had been working in an office when he first entertained the idea of telling jokes on stage. 'I was working as a graphic designer and got a comedy club email saying, 'Do you think you're funny?'' Intrigued, he signed up for the course. 'Until then, I don't think I had the self-esteem to believe I could do it, but I always wanted to.' He became interested in comedy after seeing his first standup, the Irish comic Jason Byrne. 'I couldn't wrap my head around how he just got on stage and seemingly made up the whole hour of standup on the spot and brought the crowd into it,' says Smith. 'I found it fascinating.' Smith also loved Raw, a live recording of one of Eddie Murphy's standup shows, as a kid – 'Dead naughty' – which was passed round school. But it was laconic Irish comedian Dave Allen's laid-back, stretched-out storytelling and outrageous, controversial humour that sparked inspiration. 'When you come to a full show and see my longer-form material, it's a bit slower, like Dave Allen kind of stuff.' When I sit down later at his packed show, Smith will use front-row interactions with a mixed martial artist to tell the story of his 76-second total knockout delivered by reality TV's Jake Quickenden in a 2023 charity fight ('The walkout was longer than the fucking fight … I was button bashing in real life'), and a pregnant woman to describe the birth of his two kids ('Midwives, they're all shoulder'). His rapid and outrageous one-liners – he responds to a doctor's receptionist with 'I'm surprised you fucking answered me then' – generate the biggest laughs. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Does he consider himself offensive? When it comes to swearing, Smith says: 'It's just intonation for your brain. I think it's something to do with the sound, fuck, especially in my accent. Those words are so versatile and useful.' As for content: 'I really care about people. I'm never that bad to the point where they're not enjoying it. I'm not nasty enough. 'There must be a line somewhere,' Smith continues. The best example of navigating the line lies 'with a guy called Ade. It's quite a famous clip,' he says of a moment from a 2021 Birmingham show (which has 840,000 YouTube views) in which he called an audience member lazy for not working, only for the man to reveal he had cancer. 'I went with it, I said: 'You fucking selfish cunt, bringing that up,' and he was pissing himself. Afterwards, I thought: I don't know if that was too far. His daughter messaged, and said: 'That's the first time I've seen him laugh in a year.'' Ade is now a regular at Smith's shows. An early experience of not tackling a taboo came in 2011, when he discovered that a man he called 'rude' for ignoring his banter was, in fact, blind. Smith had tried directing his usual crowd work at him, and took his lack of recognition as an unwillingness to play ball. When he told Smith that he couldn't see, the comedian 'just didn't know how to deal with it. I flapped. I panicked in case he was offended.' The audience member saved it. 'He said: 'Can you do audio description on that?' That taught me a lot. It took a while for me to lean into this stuff.' Smith often makes light of his experiences parenting his 12-year-old disabled son, who is autistic and nonverbal: 'It makes it a bit more relatable when someone brings stuff like that up. One of the first clips I put up about him was how people feel sorry for him but he gets everything he wants. If you don't give him a biscuit, he just screams. Imagine if I tried that – my wife won't give me a blowjob so I just start screaming; it's not gonna work out. 'I got a bit of backlash online and I was like: should I be talking about this? Then I thought: hang on, no; I'm talking about my experience with disability, from a genuine place. I don't think anyone can have a problem with that.' If his son were the butt of someone else's joke, he would feel differently. 'This is why I won't do roast battles,' he says. 'Comedians make dark jokes; one of them will make a joke about my son and I will lose my temper. I know I would react badly.' He can handle jokes aimed at him, though, and like many comedians, being the target of his own comedy was a natural place to start. He opened his first sets with ginger jokes: 'I'm the G word – gorgeous.' Smith's heavily ad-libbed shows vary nightly. He concedes: 'I'm not technically the funniest comedian, I've not technically got the best material. I'm just good for morale.' His 1.2 million Instagram followers testify to the formula – and the power of morale – as does the scale of his year-long Pablo tour, which includes two sold-out shows at OVO arena Wembley, Sydney's 8,000-seater ICC and London's O2, this November. He finds fame 'mad', often leaving his 'more extrovert' wife and fellow comedian Lori Smith to buffer approaches. 'I got stopped in Disney World by a 55-year-old sheriff. How does he even understand what I'm saying?' He is still finding hard to get his head around playing arenas. 'As the shows get bigger, you can't see but you can feel 15,000 people,' he says. 'You can feel a crowd pull away and you can feel a crowd come back to you. If there's a fight in the room, you can feel where it is. It runs through you.' After his first tour, this emotional overload left him feeling depressed. 'Now I realise you're taking all their energy, washing it and giving it back to them. You can't have that up without that corresponding down.' On home turf, the Liverpool crowd is as lively as they come. He could not fail to make them laugh. 'Have you ever been on an OK date?' he says before we part. 'There are crowds where it's like: 'That was fine, I was fine, you were fine, but we're never gonna call each other again.' What you want is: 'We're getting breakfast together tomorrow.' That's the crowd you want.' And as his crowd head back into the bar – the first daters, the girls, the lads and the tourists – they all look set to stay for the morning after. Paul Smith: Pablo is touring the UK and Ireland, with its final show at the O2, London, on 13 November.
Sky News
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Andrew Lawrence: Comedian barred from venues after making 'vile' joke about Liverpool parade collision
A comedian who made a "vile" joke about the Liverpool parade collision has been barred from performing at several venues across the UK. Andrew Lawrence had written on the social media site X: "To be fair, if I was in Liverpool, I'd drive through crowds of people to get the f*** out of there as well." The post attracted criticism from thousands of users - with many urging him to delete his comment and apologise. 0:43 Lawrence had been due to perform at a comedy club in Essex on 15 June, but the gig has now been cancelled. In a statement, the Caddies venue said: "We do not condone or support the comment that has been made online, and we send everyone impacted by the tragic events in Liverpool our support and prayers." The comedian struck a defiant tone, writing: "This venue lost their courage after being bombarded with abuse and threats of violence from online trolls." He has vowed to reschedule the show and perform at a different location in Southend. But a number of other comedy clubs have issued statements to say that Lawrence is no longer welcome on their stages. 2:11 The Hot Water Comedy Club - one of Liverpool's best-known venues - said on Instagram: "That's not comedy. It's cruelty, plain and simple." Its statement added: "We believe in the power of comedy to challenge, uplift and connect - not to target people in moments of real pain." The club said he will no longer appear at any of its events because "his brand of cruelty has no place in the kind of comedy we stand for". It also urged other promoters and comedians to "think carefully" before deciding to book Lawrence or share a stage with him. "If you're standing by him, you're standing against everything this industry should represent," the Hot Water Comedy Club added. 1:21 The Comedy Store, which has venues in London and Manchester, confirmed it has also barred Lawrence and "stands beside" the people of Liverpool. Merseyside Police confirmed on Wednesday that 79 people are now known to have been injured in the collision on Bank Holiday Monday. As Liverpool FC's trophy parade came to an end, a car drove into crowds on Water Street - with panicked fans watching in horror and trying to avoid being hit. A 53-year-old man is being held on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving and drug driving.
BBC News
25-03-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Everton new stadium parking zone suspension backed by business owners
Business owners have welcomed Liverpool City Council's decision to suspend controversial parking restrictions near Everton's new Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (Etro), including heavy restrictions on street parking, was introduced earlier this year within a half-hour walking radius of the Bramley-Moore Dock Monday, the council agreed to pause the restrictions until August in areas where businesses have been most heavily Blair, who owns the Hot Water Comedy Club, led a petition against the restrictions. He said that while businesses welcomed the council's decision, they were still feeling the impact of the seven weeks the rules have been in place. 'Nobody knew about it' "They've obviously seen an impact in sales and customers," said Mr Blair, who also owns Blackstock Market."There's been loads of concern about it moving forward, especially if they started to implement it every day in August, which is a huge concern."Hopefully there will be a proper economic impact assessment done and we're listened to before changes are made."The council said it had received more than 5,000 responses as part of a public owners in the streets around the stadium said they were very worried about the council's initial plans to enforce traffic restrictions all year round, rather than only on matchdays. Some even claimed the rules could force them out of Blair said more than 200 companies had been affected by the restrictions and complained about what he regarded as a lack of communication. "Nobody knew about it," he said."These businesses operate every day. We have staff every day. We have about 5,000 customers a week and they were literally impacted straight away."It's just lack of foresight, lack of any economic impact assessment." Fraser Smith, managing director of the Downland bedding company which is based about 30 minutes from the stadium, said the council's concessions were "fantastic news on face value".But he sounded a note of caution."It is only a temporary measure - we'll have to see what happens in August. But for now it's good news for all the businesses that are affected by this."Mr Blair said he was pleased with the way the local community had come together over the last few said he was hopeful that now there is an open line of communication with the council, any future changes will be discussed and agreed with residents and businesses before they council's cabinet member for transport and connectivity, Dan Barrington, said the restrictions were part of an "experimental traffic order" so changes could be made once it was live."It's given us this space to be able to listen to concerns from people, particularly as it went live, and we've taken that into consideration," he said."We really want to get the best situation for everyone in the area," added Barrington."It's complex and complicated - the whole reason we did this as an experimental traffic order was because we knew ultimately there would need to be tweaks and changes."Everton will leave Goodison Park at the end of the season in May before kicking off life at Bramley-Moore Dock in August. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
