It was a unusual event that occurred at the Stand last night. I, along with a hundred and twenty or so other souls, went to the Tuesday night gig to see the legendry Ed Byrne gracing the stage there. As part of his Warming up in the Cold: Ed in Scotland tour, which is in essence a warm-up tour for his next extravaganza that will be touring early next year Byrne was testing out the stuff, so as a work in progress, reviewers, such as I, were requested not to review it. Fair enough, so I won’t. What I will do instead instead is review his compere and opening act.

Compere for the night was a new name to me, Australian Matthew Hardy, but having done a bit of research, discovered he was a major player a number of years ago in the UK before returning to ‘home’. A native of Melbourne, Hardy was straight into his job, warming up the capacity crowd, not that they really needed it. He had a whole raft of different funny material that really hit home. The guy oozed professionalism aand I really hope he sticks  around after this tour, as I could certainly stand a full set from this very talented comedian. Having done his job in style he introduced the opening act, Nick Doody.

I had previously seen Doody doing his 2008 Edinburgh show Tour of Doody so was glad to be able to see him once again.

Like Hardy he was straight into his stuff, and first class comedy material it was too. Doody has stage presence a plenty and as befits a comedian of his quality, comedy timing pas excellance. He has the gift also for gathering his audience and seemingly taking then in one direction, only to do an about face and deliver them somewhere completely different. Belly laughs were forth coming throughout, as his well thought-out, written and delivered set seemed to strike the right chord with everyone. Booze,kids and his relationship were seemed to be the main inspiration of his all too short set, one which I for one would have been more than happy to have seen a lot more of, Roll on the next time.

Now as you know I’m not allowed to review Byrne’s show. But I can quote the compere Matt Hardy after Ed had delivered his set. ‘Well if that was warming up in the cold, I can’t wait to see it when it is hot’ I cannot comment, but he could well be right.

To see where Ed is taking this tour, also dates for the main tour next year check out his website www.edbyrne.com and for all the future Stand Comedy Club gigs in both Edinburgh and Glasgow then their web site is www.thestand.co.uk