When around 15,000 people squeeze themselves into the O2 Arena you know it’s going to be a good night. We settled into our (much better than last time) seats and within around 10-15 mins it was time for the Support Act who was American Comedian Steve Byrne.
Although only having half an hour. Steve did pretty good, although there wasn’t much comedy and joke telling, apart from the odd joke about him being half Asian and half Irish and describing himself as an Asian Kevin Spacey dressed as a figure skater. The majority of his set was taken up by him playing out his dream of being in a boyband. He picked a number of men from the crowd, and wanted ‘One of Each’ and proceeded to pick five gents of different ethnicities to form the band. He then called up a girl from the crowd who was celebrating a birthday and proceeded to lead everyone in a hilarious dance routine. Which, for the girl must have been extremely cringeworthy. But from a fan’s perspective. It was utterly hilarious!
He then asked everyone in the crowd to get to their feet and join him in singing a song, and as Mr. Brightside blasted over the loudspeaker and words appeared on the screen, The Impractical Jokers ended up coming out dancing around and singing with everyone else and pulling a few kids out the crowd to come on stage and give a few high fives and hugs, as well as posing for a few selfies. All in all, a decent warm up for the main attraction.
It then came to the four guys everyone was waiting for: Sal, Joe, Q and Murr – The Impractical Jokers.
One thing I found which was really heart-warming was there was a lady behind us signing the show for the deaf people.
They kick off by warning the kids about curse words, then proceed to swear quite a lot, they refer to themselves as the older golden girls of Prank shows, and flow their banter backwards and forwards. They went on to talking about punishments, and the permanent ones they have had, which were the guys tattoos. They proceed to show off their tattoos they were made to get as part of a punishment, Joe was the one selecting what inkwork the guys would get, and he decided that he wanted to make them personal to each guy. Q was first up saying that his took 30mins and was a cat and the words ’38 . Lives Alone. Has 3 Cats’ which at the time was accurate. They were joking that there were enough spaces to add things to it, and they moved on to the next one which was Murr who’s tattoo took 1hr 30mins and was a skydiving ferret, due to the guys saying he looks like a ferret and him being really scared when he skydived. Sal was the last one up, and was in the chair for 3hrs when they showed him the tattoo that Joe had chosen for him, it was a portrait of Jaden Smith on his thigh, which was totally random, and he says adds a conversation starter for when he’s getting intimate with women etc. He also said they met Jaden Smith and showed him the tattoo, he didn’t seem best pleased in the photo they put on the screen.
The next story they told involved Q and WWE Superstar Hornswoggle, they got talking over twitter and Q went to DM his number to ‘Swoggle, not realising that he actually posted it as a status. He received so many calls and texts, that he called to change his number. When on the phone he read the number out loud, and while he was doing this, Joe over heard and tweeted the number, much to the hilarity of Sal and Murr. Q Called again and changed the number a second time, and again one of the guys tweeted out the number. They did eventually let him sort it properly.
Sal’s story he told was about a guy in a wheelchair. He said there was this guy he noticed who was either standing, or sitting up very high in his chair, so Sal challenged him, and the guy shouted out I’m in a wheelchair. Sal’s face was a picture! The next time they went to the show in the same city, the same guy was there and he had a T-shirt saying ‘I’m in a wheelchair.’
They then decided to play a game which they play with each other on a night out. They teach us how to play: You put your phones in the middle of the table… Then someone random picks one of the phones, open their contacts, scroll down and when someone shouts stop, they have to stop and send the message ‘I tested positive’ to the person and wait for the reply. They did this with the audience, and a random chick gave them her phone, the contact it stopped on ended up being her Dad! He didn’t reply, so they texted again saying ‘Fuck You’ and then again with a picture of Joe’s butt.
The guys brought the show to a close with a massive thank you to their second home, and that in January over 75,000 people came out in London to watch them, and that they were family and not just fans.
They show the video of Murr eating shit again, and close the show with Twist and Shout.
All in all I enjoyed the show, and some of the stories that they told were brilliant and hilarious.
Check out the review I did back in January of the ‘Santiago Sent Us’ Tour