5 Shows You ‘Need’ To Watch On Comedy Crowd TV
By Peter Wright
So you don’t need to watch anything really. I know that. I just thought with this being the internet the custom seems to be that a healthy dollop of hyperbole doesn’t go amiss. And this next bit will change your life.
During April we’ve launched a 30 day free trial for the Comedy Crowd TV channel, added to which if you continue beyond the 30 days you can elect a comedy club or organisation to receive half of your £12 access fee (that’s £12 for a year, not a month like your average subscription channels).
But what the jumping Jehovahs is the Comedy Crowd TV Channel? Well it’s the home for the best independent comedy from our community of creators. The fresh creators who nowadays face a real slog to get noticed by mainstream channels, but who thrive in our crowd sourced comedy community. This is the place to find the most exciting new talent, first. Here are 5 shows you ‘need’ to check out:
Michael Spicer’s One-Man Lolwagon
Michael Spicer shot to prominence this year with his ‘Room Next Door’ series in which he plays the role of an adviser to celebrities and politicians during their most calamitous interviews (yes, Boris and Donald are featured and don’t disappoint). The viral appeal of this format is finally getting Spicer the recognition he deserves, but take time to look at his back catalogue and you’ll find a treasure trove of weird and wonderful sketches. Michael Spicer’s Lolwagon has now been compiled into a 3 episode series on Comedy Crowd TV. Chris Catcher, the tone-deaf leader of the United Men’s Movement (UMM) is a character not to be missed.
‘As an act of protest against the feminexist women only screenings I am organising a male only screening of a male centric film at my local cinema. My Aunt Sharon is coming. She is a woman but she has agreed to drive me to the cinema and she doesn’t want to wait in the car all that time… But that’s it.’ – Chris Catcher
Zipwaz Humphries
Victor Hampson is the creator of ‘Zipwaz Humphries’, a sitcom that celebrates a pocket of South West rural England and a menagerie of oddball characters. Surreal yet reassuringly familar. Dark yet undeniably warm and sweet. If the Mighty Boosh was musical theatre on acid, Zipwaz is the Mighty Boosh on nothing but earl grey tea and a slice of battenburg. The reason the show hasn’t hit the mainstream yet? On first watch it can seem that Victor and his pals are chancing it. The acting appears wooden, the effects rudimentary, and the music tapped out on keyboard piano. But keep watching and it soon becomes clear that the style is deliberate, and perfectly pitched to Victor’s bizarre but brilliant sense of humour. There’s nothing like this anywhere else.
‘All this sacrificing has taken me by surprise. I had plans, I was going to go swimming on Thursday. How’s that going to work if I’ve been sacrificed? I suppose you might take my corpse to the pool, I might float about a bit, but there’s going to be no active propulsion so it’s just going to drift across the lanes. That’s going to inconvenience the other swimmers.‘
Aussie Girls
Joanne Carolan and Pascale WIlson have been touring their stand-up and character shows as ‘Shirley and Shirley’ for 6 years. Their brash and irreverent style is best showcased in their series ‘Aussie Girls’ which portrays two Australians in search of the English dream: binge drinking and promiscuity. They’ve made a mini series of the show which is available on Comedy Crowd TV. It’s not safe for the easily offended and definitely not for work.
‘You are a strong, independent Aussie chick from Darwin, with an alcohol dependency and an unhealthy relationship with picnic cheese. They need to accept you for who you are’
Third Leg Studios
The boys from Third Leg Studios, Mark Whelan, Joel Stern and Tel Mears, have been making great sketches for a while. They take a sideways look at modern masculinity, satirising characters and behaviours in a way rarely seen on the mainstream comedy scene. The best of their work comes in their 5 part web-series ‘No-Fap’ which follows Richard Perera on his journey to abstain from porn and masturbation – which he has been led to believe will help him become physically stronger, mentally sharper and spiritually enlightened.
‘I was masturbating up to 30 times per month and that, coupled with my low sales record, cost me my job’
Un_conditional
Un_conditional is a self-filmed documentary by Rob Morgan and Tom Cousins following a Christian outreach pop/synth band as they release new music and tour the country’s top churches. There’s little new about comedians poking fun at religion, but this mockumentary is both kind hearted and hilarious. It acts as the perfect showreel to propel this comedy duo, whose writing is sharp and dynamic is authentic.
’The way Chrinder works is you get put in a virtual church hall, you have a two minute sermon and then you start swiping. So you swipe right if you want to pursue them, you swipe left to love them as a sister of Christ. If you get a match you can then offer them a digital piece of quiche and filter coffee, if they accept that you can then start chatting to their Dad.’
All these shows and many more are available today on the Comedy Crowd TV channel.
No code for your local club? Or are you a company owner? Get in touch at theccteam@thecomedycrowd.com.