Review by Tatum Stafford
It’s clear comedian Marcus Brigstocke has a following of die-hard fans – as we were ushered in for Friday night’s sold-out performance of his latest show ‘Cheese and Whine’, there was a palpable excitement in the room.
Marcus did a bit of a pre-show exercise, where audience members were prompted to write down some of their ‘whines’ on a piece of paper which he collected, and then read from throughout the show.
The concept of this show is really fun. Essentially, Marcus would pick a whine out of a large wine class (clever), read it out, chat to the person that wrote it to get a bit of context, and then pair their whine with a cheese. He had about 10 to 12 cheeses laid out on a serving board next to him onstage, which ranged from Brie to blue and plenty of other varieties.
In his preamble, he spoke to us about his experience as a cheese judge, some of his favourite cheeses, and a bit about his recommendations for local Scottish cheeses.
It’s clear Marcus is a master at crowdwork. Every person he spoke with seemed to be completely at ease chatting with him, answering his questions, and often, getting teased a fair bit for the nature of their question (which was very funny to observe for all involved). Some examples of whines on the night I attended included “I’m worried I’m going bald”, “KFC has reduced the sizes of their burgers” and “Male engineers”. After chatting to each person, a cheese was chosen, and Marcus would deliver a sample of the cheese to the person’s seat so we could all watch their reaction as they tried it and described its flavours.
This was a really fun and interactive night of comedy, and I’d highly recommend heading along. Come prepared with a few whines of your own – who knows, yours might be read out and you could have the chance to try some delicious cheeses!
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