Raising the roof for Reprieve: highlights from Comedy Night 2010

Last night ten top comedians, including Tim Minchin, Stewart Lee and Ed Byrne, came together to ‘stand up’ for Reprieve in front of 1,300 supporters in  London’s Lyceum Theatre.

Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith opened the night by explaining why the Reprieve stewards were wearing rather fetching orange pants – due to the (unintentionally) comic regulations at Guantanamo Bay that ban prisoners from wearing Speedos and contraband underpants.

The rest of the first act was also pant-wettingly funny (groan-sorry!). First up was Ed Byrne, who launched into an angry rant about sombre Tuesday night crowds making Reprieve very relieved that we had opted for a Monday gig! He was followed by the much calmer Isy Suttie who sung a hysterical ditty about the perils of shopping at Ikea.

Reprieve’s work took centre stage as Robin Ince reminisced about the Daily Express headlines speculating what type of doughnut (chocolate? custard?) Binyam Mohamed ate following his release from Guantanamo Bay and Andy Zaltzman confessed to experimenting with rather unusual self-interrogation techniques to find his lost keys. Phill Jupitus finished the first act with a bang hitting the audience with his rhythm stick, backed by the wonderful female acapella trio The La De Dahs.

At the beginning of the second act it was the audience who stole the stage serenading Shappi Khorsandi with a slightly out-of-synch rendition of 'Happy Birthday'. Guitar-welding Kevin Eldon followed with a much more harmonious musical number until his pesky disks started jumping! Stewart Lee was on fire as he gave the audience a lesson on how to ensure a good quality of life: stay away from countryside fields and prawn-scoffing emigrants. The show was closed by the flamboyant Tim Michin, who brought the house down with his bare-footed, rock-star act complete with wind machine.

A special mention must also go to our fabulous host Alistair Barrie who introduced the comedians with aplomb and had the audience in stitches as he compared our dour British politicians with the fly-killing, secret-ninja President across the pond.

Reprieve raised over £25,000 pounds from ticket sales and over £1,600 in donations on the night. We would like to say a huge thank you to all ten acts and everybody who attended for making the evening such an outstanding success.