Laugh-Out-Loud-Comedy-Club Featuring....

Event information

What better way to chase off those winter blues than by having a ruddy good laugh?!!

Following the success of 2009’s LOL Comedy Club, 2010 sees The Brook playing host to the monthly Thursday night comedy event, which showcases some of the finest comedy talent established in the UK as well as introducing some of the dynamic rising stars of these shores.

Michael Smiley.

DOUR-FACED Irish comedian Michael Smiley has been amusing, informing and entertaining punters for nearly 20 years. He first broke into public in 1993, when he took the runners-up slot in the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny new act competition at the Edinburgh Festival.

Michael Smiley has since become a popular and regular face at Edinburgh as well as spreading his wings to become a favourite at all the major clubs and comedy festivals at home and around the globe.

Born in Belfast in 1963, Michael Smiley uses his experiences of growing up in Northern Ireland during the troubles to good effect, proving that, in the right hands, even terrorism can be funny. His quietly unassuming Belfast drawl and hangdog appearance, makes the audience listen to everything Michael has to say and boy do they appreciate it.

An anecdotal comic, Michael Smiley ploughs a fertile furrow of amusing material from both his own childhood and that of his children with wife Miranda.

Also the master of the one-liners, delivered in a disarmingly lateral style, Michael Smiley keeps his audience guessing his mix of the serious, the surreal and the stupendously funny.

A cycle courier in a previous life (hence the constant look of fear), his doom laden and world-weary expression warms him to audiences from the word go, leaving them ready for the surprise of a sudden burst of anger when he vents his spleen at some incident from the past, the present or even the future.

A regular face on TV stand-up shows like The Comedy Store and Live at Jongleurs, top stand-up Michael Smiley has also taken his laconic look into the world of acting and comedy drama, with appearances as cycle courier Tyres O'Flaherty in Spaced, a handful of different roles in Al Murray’s Time Gentleman Please, an Irish itinerant in Sean Lock’s 15 Storeys High and even a dash for Dickens as Phil Squod in the 2005 adaptation of Bleak House.

Matt Kirshen

At 26, Matt Kirshen's precision wit has already earned him an impressive reputation on the UK comedy circuit. His engagingly impish style is shot through with an intelligent and skillful talent that belies his youthful appearance, making him a firm favourite with audiences and fellow comedians alike.

A fter a triumphant win at the 2003 Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition, Matt became an instant success on the the prestigious London and UK comedy circuit, a welcome regular at The Comedy Store, Jongleurs, The Glee, The Stand, Just The Tonic ,Belfast Empire, The Hyena, Jesters, Rawhide, Laughter House, Komedia, as well as university tours the length and breadth of the UK. He has performed to festival crowds at Glastonbury, Oxford Truck and The Carling Weekend in Reading and Leeds.

"A rollercoaster of comedy genius" - The Scotsman.
"Matt Kirshen is a definite one to watch, his innocent looks belying a sharp, surreal and often gloriously sick mind" - Metro

Mark Walker

This colourful enigmatic nomad was born in Ireland. He then moved to, and throughout the north of England where he was last seen fronting a pub rock band by night, and working as a pebble dasher by day in Grimsby. He now find himself living in London and working the comedy circuit. Confused? Well not as much as he is!

The comedy urge has always been there but manifested itself in January 1999. Since then Mark has become one of the top comics on the circuit today. He is vocally and physically dynamic with his performance in which he combines life with surrealism, to become a living embodiment of his daydreams.

2001 saw Marks' debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in his one-man show, 'The Man Who Fell To Mirth', which grew over the festival to become a sell out show. Since then he has taken his comedy from the Middle East to the Far East and back to the North East, along with various guest appearances on BBC1, Channel 4 & Channel 5, he may never have to dash another a pebble again!
"Vein-Popping intensity, clearly born to entertain". - The Independent
"Mark Walker is a very talented man". - The Scotsman