Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of The Fringe: Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 2017
Headliners Comedy Club: George IV Pub, Chiswick, London 2017
Up The Creek Comedy Club: Up The Creek, Greenwich, London, 2019
Headliners Comedy Club: George IV pub, Chiswick, London, 2020
Collywobblers Comedy Presents Comedy @ Sambrook’s Brewery: Sambrook’s Brewery, Wandsworth, London, 2024
Russell Hicks: Rough Seas and Mushy Peas: Hastings Comedy Festival 2024, Oscars, St Leonards, Hastings, 2024
The American comedian living in Britain, Russell Hicks was recommended to see by a friend of mine and he did not disappoint. I caught him as a guest on Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of The Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival and then compering Headliners Comedy Club in London both in 2017. Hicks has a sarcastic intellect and a merciless charm together with cynicism mixed with expressionless belligerence and antagonism. Hicks scrutinised his audiences well and cooperated with them, creating a stand up based almost entirely off the crowds.
Hicks was the first act on the bill at Up The Creek Saturday Night Comedy that I saw in December 2019. Hicks was extremely confident and fearless with the loud, drunken, heckling audience and effortlessly made me and the rest of the crowd cry helplessly with laughter. His routine comparing Americans with the British was inspired and he was a very entertaining opening act.
I saw the comedian again very shortly afterwards in January 2020 compering the Saturday night show at Headliners Comedy Club in Chiswick. He was an extremely confident compere answering any heckle with a brilliant put-down or an intelligent witty reply and warmed the drunken audience up until they were belly laughing at him.
Hicks headlined Collywobblers Comedy Presents Comedy @ Sambrook’s Brewery that I watched in February 2024, and then delivered a 90-minute set at the Hastings Comedy Festival in June 2024. Capable of making any subject funny, he went off on tangents during his inspired set, delighted the audience coming up with ingenious on the spot ideas.