Review: Live Comedy | Howlers @ Marrs Bar | 3rd April 2025
with Sally Anne Hayward, Michael Fabbri, Pierre Hollins and Stephen Grant
Truly, The Marrs Bar offered up a sweet confection of comedy on the night…
You have to question why anyone would want to walk out in front of a room full of strangers with the only premise: you think you are funny. Well, Sally Anne Hayward did just that and then turned the tables by asking the assembled – and there were quite a few of us – a few questions of her own. How many Dave’s were in the room? Setting the mood was effortless for the languid and laidback comedienne. Hayward may have been the warm-up and compere, however, her own take on being a female of a certain age brought forth much laughter. When propositioned in Aldi by a man laden down with straining basket of wine, the crux of the joke was based on gender, age, class and, of course, alcohol. How very English…
Micael Fabbri once worked in a Job Centre in Camberwell. You have a great sense that this singular experience ensured the now Brighton based comedian always looks for the humour in life. Fabbri’s humour borrows from the everyday. As he knows laughs are lurking in the workplace, relationships and inheriting hand-me-down phones. The knowing chortles bouncing off the low ceiling of the Marrs Bar were inspired by Fabbri’s need to source laughs in the minutiaeof the mundane. The scatological story of his daughter and the playground slide is causing me to smile as I write this paragraph.
It is all swings and roundabouts for Pierre Hollins, the accomplished comedian who arrived with an impressive CV. Confident and ebullient, Hollins attacked the stage with all the awareness of a man who knows how to make people laugh. Who knew there were guffaws to be mined in prostate cancer avoidance? You have to hand it to Hollins, such is his self- belief, he can walk on muddy water. The introduction of the comedian’s guitar embellished proceedings. His blues-riff vignettes of tragedy and sorrow were as pithy as they were funny. The song about not wanting to go shopping took five minutes to write and a lifetime to forget; the singalong was as enjoyable as it was unexpected.
Brighton’s Stephen Grant is anerudite comedian and he knows it…the jokes, observations and truths hit the audience like the constant waves hit Brighton’s beach: they just keep coming. From his considered thesis on individual’s names, the period they originated, to their true inference. From his thoughts on the stereotypical viewpoint of Brighton’s fans to the reality of 9,000 Millwall fans singing in unison, a gay standard, with their arms around each other. The humour is as dependable as Dave turning up to fix a leaky cistern. Grant was enjoying himself so much he over ran his time slot. No one was complaining, “not even Saskia and I bet she is always complaining about something on Mumsnet.”
Promised and delivered, an evening’s entertainment of comedic quality. Streets ahead of the competition, Howlers have been organising eclectic nights of comedy since 2005; always a true celebration of comedy, at times heroes just come armed with japes…what a sweet confection! Just ask Dave. The next night of comedy at the Marrs Bar, run by Howlers, is on 1st of May…even more satisfying than a twix straight out of the fridge.
By: The Swilgate Scuttler