User Reviews

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? - no it's - er a moth! Is Live at the Moth Club a mockumentary? - in part yes. Is it a comedy sketch show? - kind of. Is it a stand-up comedy showcase? - well kind of as well. This new comedy series on Dave is a bit of a mixture of all of those elements - and as can be the case when mixing things together the results may or may not work.

Live at the Moth Club is set in the real, titular, alternative comedy club in Hackney, London. It sounds like a smaller scale version of the BBC's Live at the Apollo - but there's more too it than that. Apparently, Dave have sent a documentary film crew to film behind the scenes as the team that put on these events under the Moth Club banner organise stand-up comedy shows and deal with all manner of problems. But it is a mockumentary with some recognisable faces playing these characters - I particularly liked Mark Heap as George. The show is basically a platform for an ensemble cast of Moth Club regulars to play around with comedy genres. There are actual stand-up performances too from some upcoming and established acts.

I thought some of the sketches went off on bizarre tangents, but most were pretty fun and I enjoyed seeing a few stand-up comedians I hadn't heard of before. I also thought that the Only Fools and Horses style opening titles were a good idea too. A curious and slightly confusing at times (is such and such comedian appearing as themselves or a caricature of themselves?) but fun and somewhat different programme.

I have to disagree with some of the other reviewers. One mentions that it's 'a bit of a disaster'; there's no 'bit' involved. It is - of course - a matter of personal opinion, but far from redeeming the show, for me, Cardinal Burns exemplify it's sheer unutterable awfulness. I watched this, initially, because the usually brilliant Mark Heap is in it - and he does his best, God love him, but there's just nothing to work with. In all honesty, if Mark Heap were just allowed to improvise for an hour, it still couldn't be worse than it is now - in fact, for that matter, if he simply stood there and did nothing for an hour the same would be true.

I watched the first episode expecting something at least half decent and was bitterly disappointed. In fairness I thought I'd give it a second shot. By halfway through the second episode I was still thinking 'surely this is going to get better at some point'; but, no, it was just unmitigated dreck from start to finish. The embarrassing and, yes, completely cringeworthy decade and a half ( was it that long? - I don't know: it seemed like it ) where City Boy took the stage while the audience remained deathly silent throughout, made me wonder: don't the people at Dave realise that this is exactly what's happening in our homes throughout the whole show?

The thing that's surprised me most about this is that half of it does in fact feature actual comedians - I use that word in it's absolutely most generous sense - doing their sets. I realise that comedy, and entertainment in general, ain't what it used t'be - but seriously, don't you have to be at least a LITTLE bit funny to get a spot at a comedy club nowadays?

I don't know ... on second thought, perhaps not: after all, you apparently don't have to be even remotely amusing to get an hour-long 'comedy' show on Dave ...