This February the Frog and Bucket comedy club welcomes another monthly gig to its line up with The Discount Comedy Checkout Improv Show. Not that there’s anything bargain basement about the quality of this gang’s improv skills. Now in their tenth year, the Leeds based comedy group are celebrating by branching out in to Manchester.
Creating hilarious impromptu sketches before your very eyes; 100% raw improvisation is guaranteed. Weird and wonderful suggestions are taken from the audience to form new comedy creations before your very eyes. So if you’ve ever wanted to see a giant jelly man attack New York City or a musical romance blossom between a kitchen sink and a fridge then come along, suggest it and The Discount Comedy Checkout will deliver it for you!
The show was set up a decade ago by Chris Lumb after a trip to New York and an improv course with Second City comedy club. Lumb figured it was something that could be done over here so he got together with some friends and started performing shows in The Packhorse pub in Leeds. The original show had stand up comedy in the first half, then improv comedy in the second until the improv took over the entire night.
The Discount Comedy Checkout team currently consists of Chris Lumb, Natalie Smeaton, Eddie French, Terri Shaw, Jade Fearnley, Tom King and Dom Hodgson. The players rotate from show to show.
Of the Frog residency Lumb noted, “I am thrilled to be bringing our show to the Frog. It’s going to be a real honour to perform in a club that has such a fantastic comedy history. As for our show, I think there is a serious lack of improvisation comedy shows outside of London and a lot of audiences have never seen it performed live. The whole group are looking forward to getting some great suggestions from our new audience!”
The Frog’s manager Jess Toomey added, “we’ve always strived to bring a varied, diverse range of comedy in all its various forms to the Frog and Bucket, yet never ventured into improvisational comedy. So it’s really exciting to add The Discount Comedy Checkout to our programme of regular shows.”
The monthly line up at the club already includes professional act nights each weekend in the form of Barrel of Laughs, the quieter connoisseurs’ night on a Thursday and new act night in the form of a gong show every Monday. Then there’s all female line up on the final Sunday of the month with Laughing Cows, comedians testing out new material at Work In Progress every second Wednesday. In addition the club regularly plays host to comedians’ touring shows and one-off quirky comedy nights.
The Frog and Bucket was Manchester’s first comedy club dedicated to alternative comedy. It originally opened its doors in 1994 in the upstairs room of a pub. It has been in its current venue in Manchester’s hip Northern Quarter for twenty years, offering comedy on most nights of the week.
First show – Sunday 19th February
£5.
GET TICKETS
The Frog and Bucket, 102 Oldham St, Manchester, M4 1LJ
0161 236 9805
www.frogandbucket.com/manchester
