Wine Gums Comedy Night

Come and have a giggle listening to 4 comedians, while you are sitting in deckchairs, around a table, sipping wine or your favourite tipple and tucking into your platter of nibbles … that we’ll have on sale….all amongst the apple and quince trees. 

 

There is some parking but great if you could walk or cycle to us along the riverside and your evening may be enhanced further. 

 

Headlining we have.. 

 

Ben Van der Velde is a stand-up comedian, actor, improviser and presenter. Over the past decade he has spread joy and nonsense to all four corners of the British Isles, as well as Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Norway. He is a regular host and act for respected British comedy clubs such as The Comedy Store, Komedia, The Backyard, The Glee, Covent Garden Comedy Club, The Stand, Comedy Loft, Top Secret Comedy, Outside the Box, the Frog & Bucket and Comedy Club 4 Kids, as well as hosting stages for Bestival, Festival No.6, End of the Road and Sunday Papers Live. 

 

He also has experience of performing at RAF Bases, large corporate events, hosting comedy workshops and doing audience warm-up for Deal Or No Deal. On top of that, he has taken commissions to perform a voodoo re-marriage ceremony, founded the Church of the Holy Kazoo with comedy legend Mark Thomas, walked the entire London Underground network to raise money for The Refugee Council, hosted a comedy tour of the FIFA Museum in Zurich and even took part in experiments at The Royal Society that revealed him to have the most infectious laugh of any human, rat or monkey.

 

Opening the evening we have a musical act all the way from…Birmingham. HANNAH SILVESTER has been performing for around 10 years. Based in Birmingham, she is a regular on the West Midlands comedy circuit and is busy gigging around the country performing for a number of clubs and promoters. Her set combines frank and honest material with a warm delivery. In 2014 she won the Breakthrough Act Award at the Midlands Comedy Awards. She has also been a finalist in a number of competitions including the Breaking Talent Award at the Birmingham Glee Club, the Nottingham Comedy Festival New Comedian of the Year Competition, and the Hull Comedy Festival New Comedian of the Year Award.

 

She’s a woman with alot of attitude, and a way of expressing it that is often viciously, hilariously blunt. She revels in her bad parenting, is withering about sexist behaviour, and frank about ageing – all delivered with a compelling surety’ – Steve Bennett – Chortle

 

And in the middle spots we have these lovely, funny two!

 

PAUL MERRYCK … an Essex based comedian who has been making a name for himself as one of the more original and outrageous character acts on the London/South-East circuit. Feckless, amoral and utterly unabashed, the middle-aged chancer he portrays, disdainfully deconstructs the disaster that is his life, in a hilarious sequence of short gags and tall stories.

 

Paul regularly appears professionally in London for Angel Comedy, Hampstead Comedy Club and Monkey Business Comedy amongst others, and for many other promoters outside London including Mirth Control and Suffolk Punch Comedy. He regularly MCs at TNT Comedy in Kentish Town and Funny for Nothing in Borough. He also manages and comperes a monthly professional night at ACanteen in Chelmsford, called AComedy Club.  He has performed every year at the Edinburgh Festival since 2016, and took his first 1-hour show to the Hastings Comedy Festival in June 2018, and in 2019 he performed his one man show ‘Local Businessman Unrepentant’ at The Bill Murray in London, and at the Leicester and Brighton Fringe Festivals. He followed this up with his latest show ‘Lies, Alibis and Filthy Stories’ at the Brighton and Colchester Fringe Festivals in 2021

When not performing, Paul spends most of his time drinking in the garden and shouting at the wireless.

·        Leicester Square Theatre Old Comedian of the Year Finalist 2018

·        Essex Comedian of the Year Finalist 2019

 

And last but not least, Tom Elwes is a young comic, featured in AAA Late Show Edinburgh 2019, with sharp storytelling and acute observations, and a large social media presence. Tom Elwes is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. As a life long Londoner, he uses a combination of storytelling and acute observations to make sense of his chaotic existence. His quick wit and high-energy charm make him one to look out for in the future. Tom is one of the newest comics to break through on the comedy circuit. He is a regular at the Top Secret Comedy Club and Vauxhall Comedy Club.

Tom spent most of 2020 developing a strong online presence and now has 10s of thousands of followers on Instagram, TikTok, and facebook and his sketches have been viewed millions of times. 

 

He runs the weekly ‘All I Do Is Fail’ Podcast with fellow comedian Ali Woods. Previous guests include Dane Baptiste, Tony Law, Elf Lyons, Sadia Azmat, Ola the comedian, Uncle Ed. He is currently working on a web series for Pulped.