An unassuming little place, nestled in the cobbles of Battersea High Street, with simple wooden furniture and several locals propping up the bar, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Chez Manny was just another average French joint. But you’d be dead wrong.

Front of house Emmanuel Lambelin (AKA Manny), is a very jolly sort and tells us all kinds of entertaining stories, from his days as a high society butler to his involvement with the last ever Battersea Power Station rave in ‘95. “I ‘ad to quit raving and give my brain a rest”, he tells us and several years later it seems, Chez Manny was born. Since the restaurant opened in 2002, the friendly atmosphere Manny and his team strive to create here, not to mention the high quality French cooking, has quietly turned it into something of a local favourite. I say quietly, as it’s by no means full, but judging from Manny’s easy banter with most of the tables here, you get the feeling many have been here before.

Manny reads us some specials from a board, which all sound utterly delicious. As my friend points out, there’s something about the French accent when describing food which immediately makes your mouth water. “Snails in garlique butter, boeuf bourguignon, ‘omemade terrine… ” Um, yes please, all of the above.

We start off with buttery, garlicky L’esgargot de Bourgogne (good, but hard to go too wrong here) and celeriac remoulade with poached mackerel. Lightly cooked in red wine vinegar, I’m a little apprehensive as to what the fish will taste like without it’s oft-celebrated crispy skin but as it turns out, it is equally tasty poached. The crunchy, creamy celeriac coupled with the tangy, butter-soft fish is an inspired combination and finished off beautifully with a delicate tomato salsa. Stunningly simple and instantly scoffable.

Next we opt for two French classics: cassoulet and duck leg confit. Chock full of meaty goodies like ham hock and Toulouse sausage, swimming in a thick tomato and rosemary sauce, the cassoulet is exactly what it should be: hearty, earthy, comforting stew. The duck confit, pan-fried and served with a red wine reduction, is perfectly cooked: the salty, crispy, duck skin hiding melt-in-the mouth tender leg meat underneath. Incredibly rich and worth every calorie-laden bite.

We finish up with a tarte tartin and prunes ‘a’l'Armaniac’ with ice cream. The tarte tatin is really pleasing with a hint of rosemary giving the sticky-sweet caramelised apples an added depth of flavour. The prunes are a little too boozy for me but clearly not too much for my friend, who promptly orders a brandy.

I’d put chez Manny up there with any good bistro in France. New head chef Jean-Yves Guiomar serves up simple, rustic food, with an elegance of touch and enough imagination to elevate it beyond your average French fayre; while Manny and his staff go out of their way to create a relaxed, convivial environment. And don’t just take my word for it. Nick Rhodes, from Duran Duran no less, has even waxed lyrical about it, citing it “Battersea’s Best Kept Secret”. Better stop telling people about it then Nick.

*Chez Manny is offering Spoonfed readers a 20% discount off their overall bill. Just quote ‘Spoonfed’ when making a booking*

Chez Manny
145-149 Battersea High Street
London SW11 3JS

Tel: 020 7223 4040

Ah St James’s Street. Coming to this part of central London is like stepping into a time machine. None of the shops would look out of place on a Victorian high street, from William Evans the Gun & Rifle makers to Lock & Co Hatters and my personal favourite – Berry Bros. Wine Merchants with its maze of wood-panelled rooms, higgledy-piggledy staircases, cellars of dusty vintage Tokay and giant coffee scales dating back from the 1700s, when the likes of Lord Byron and William Pitt would weigh themselves in the shop. You can even read the log books of weights and the section of excuses – the Duke of Cleveland has  ‘heavy coat’ written next to one particularly unflattering entry.

Dukes Hotel is located in a quiet little courtyard just off St James’s Place. I’ve come along to check out their new cognac and cigar garden attached to the drawing room conservatory. I haven’t touched a cigar since accidentally inhaling one at my graduation ball but I can appreciate what a luxury it must be to go to a bar in London, post-ban, where a long smoke with a stiff drink is actively encouraged.

Then again, this is Dukes we’re talking about, the hotel Ian Fleming used to frequent, inspiring James Bond’s famous phrase ’shaken not stirred’. It’s considerably more refined than yaou. The garden is essentially a small patio with a gazebo-type canopy sheltering it, but it fits 20 people seated and has some rather snazzy decking, lanterns, cushioned chairs and perhaps the smartest touch of all, a wooden brandy cabinet with a full range of cognac.

Alessandro, the bar manager hands us a ‘Ruby Windsor’ cocktail created especially for the garden, comprising of champagne, angostura bitters, Martell XO cognac and a brown sugar cube. It’s predictably delicious. Those who enjoy something punchier start tucking into cognac on ice until – disaster! Some poor chap’s cigar has gone out. No matter,  Alessandro scuttles off to relight it and civility is restored.

Dukes’ Cigar and Cognac Garden is open all year round, from 8pm, with heating in winter. A 50ml Martell Corden Bleu is priced at £12, while the Ruby Windsor cocktail is £16.50. Cigars range from £16-£36 each.

Finding fast food that is filling but doesn’t leave that greasy feeling in the pit of your stomach can be somewhat of a challenge but Tortilla have got it nailed. This is Californian-Mexican food rather than Tex-Mex so don’t expect any messy, fried cheese-laden nachos here. Instead they provide tasty-as-hell wraps you can eat on the go or savour with a magarita or two.

As you arrive at the counter, beaming staff help you assemble a burrito, fajita or taco of your choice. First there’s the meat of the filling: either steak, ‘carnitas’ (slow-braised pork)  grilled chicken or sautéed onions and peppers for the veggies. I opt for a flour tortilla  with steak, topped with black beans and lime and coriander rice. It’s already looking huge and I have bigger plans for my burrito so I skip the cheese and sour cream and move onto the salad and extras.

If it all weren’t so healthy I’d be embarassed with my greed here as I practically order the entire salad and extras bar. Faced with a a vivid mix of green guacamole, tomato salsa, crisp iceberg lettuce and jalapeno chillis I point to them all and try to ignore the fact my burrito is now the size of a large jar of coffee. But it doesn’t stop there! There’s sauces to be had and if there’s thing in life I love more than steak it’s sauce.  You can choose between fiery salsa rojo, green japapeno salsa or mild pico de gallo (or in my case – all three).

I must admit eating this gargantuan food parcel is a challenge, but thankfully I’m here with a friend and not on a date. The steak is juicy and packed full of flavour thanks to a spice rub  and complimented perfectly by the lime-y rice and fresh flavours of tomato and avocado. Rounding it all off is a subtle kick from the chillis. Delicious.

Washed down with a zesty magarita resembling a boozy slush puppy, my meal comes to about £10 but would have been £6 without the drink. With several outlets in Islington, Bankside and Canary Wharf,  Tortilla is the ideal place to grab a quick bite. Look’s like I’ll be making a few trips to Angel during my lunch breaks from now on.

Visit www.tortilla.co.uk for more information.

Unless I’m heading to the glorious Harwood Arms I usually try and avoid Fulham at all costs. If you’re not tripping over buggies and mums you’re bumping into some roaring chin from school you’ve done your best to avoid ever since.

So it is with slight hesitation that I venture out to My Dining Room formerly known as the Farm. I can’t help but think the new name is a bit naff – what was wrong with The Farm? They are based on Farm Lane after all. It’s clearly supposed to reflect the new mood of the place – head chef Julian Marshall is still at the helm, but the menu is geared more towards home cooking, with sharing dishes of shepherd’s pie on offer next to the a la carte.

The room has had a  makeover although I struggle to notice exactly what’s changed – it’s the same layout, the same sparsely decorated modern interior with muted wallpaper and dark wood. It’s not quite as cosy as my living room but it’s certainly comfortable.

I start off with braised oxtail and parsnip rosti. The sweet crunchiness of the rosti is the perfect compliment to oxtail. Melt-in-the-mouth tender, I could have finished off several tails like this, nevermind one. A had seared tuna with pickled cucumber and tomato dressing which I felt duty-bound to sample. Fresh and clean, it’s the perfect palate cleanser to rich meat.

The main courses throw out a few queries. I order the steak tartare burger, interested to see if it works – and am asked how I’d like it cooked: “Well although it says steak tartare our customers can order it blue, rare or medium rare.” Confused with all this choice, I opt for rare and it comes out well, like a burger really, fancy that. A delicious one nonetheless with a fried egg, homemade ketchup and capers on top. A has the ribeye steak “with English mustard please”. “I’m afraid we have no English mustard.” “No English mustard – that’s insane!” Condiment quibbles aside, the steak is perfectly cooked and packed with flavour. No wonder – all the meat is sourced from H.G Walter’s in Baron’s Court, one of the best butcher’s in London.

Pudding should really be out of the question – I’m taking the word ’sated’ to a whole new level. But ginger bread and butter pudding sounds too good to miss. One of their sharing dishes, it arrives on a wooden board and is enormous – eek! Amazingly, it’s fluffy rather than stodgy and we manage to wolf down half before admitting defeat.

Washed down with a smooth Rioja, the bill comes to just over £50 a head; not cheap but fairly typical for London. I think I prefer this new incarnation of The Farm.  While there are one or two pretensions that could be dispensed with; it’s simple, satisfying comfort food with well-sourced ingredients.  And there wasn’t a mum or a chin in sight.

A three course meal, with wine and water, came to £102.

www.mydiningroom.net

For those of you that don’t know, Dukes is a smart hotel in St James’s with a bar renowned for its martinis, particularly because Ian Fleming frequented the place and it is supposedly where he created the classic line, ‘shaken not stirred’. Spoonfed has been kindly invited to a martini tasting there and I am more than happy to take up the offer in the line of investigative journalism.

We find the hotel just off St James’s Place in a secluded courtyard and get settled in the bar, which is pretty cosy as far as upmarket hotels go. Looking at our drinks menus is a waste of time as bar manager Alessandro Palazzi (who looks like he’s been making martinis for longer than I’ve had hot dinners), already seems to know what we’ll be having. “I think you should have the passion fruit” he tells me before returning with a vivid orange number which I polish off in minutes. Sweet, fruity and fresh, it’s so delicious it barely touches the sides. The next one I try, the ‘dirty martini’  is made of sterner stuff. This is the real McCoy: undiluted, pure alcohol except for small modicum of salty olive brine to take the edge off.

Alessandro prepares classic martinis like this one  by our table, out of a special trolley no less. Vermouth is sprayed from a crystal atomiser into a chilled glass while the rim is wiped with a freshly cut lemon peel before he adds the frozen vodka (you can go for gin of course too). It hits you hard but not so hard you make a face. It is so well made that despite it being essentially neat vodka, is has a smooth and dry taste with subtle flavours of lemon (or olive in my case) that cut through the liquor.

Apparently after two martinis like this one at Dukes, if you try and order another you will be politely told it should be your last. And, judging by the slight wobble I had on the way home, this is no bad thing.

We enquire afterwards about the martini masterclass Alessandro offers: “Well, when are you coming?” he asks, “Because I get very booked up and I’m thinking of taking a break from them for a while.” You heard it here first peeps – if you want to learn how to make a martini from the best in London, get in there quick!

The Martini Master Class is £85 per person and includes (subject to availability & maximum of 6 people per class): 1.5 hours exclusive guidance, martini and canapés at end of class and a voucher for a complimentary martini at a later date.

Master Class Dates:
Saturday 27th February 2010
Saturday 27th March 2010
Classes held between 2-4pm.

Or five minutes it would seem, as having sent an e-mail at 9:30am that May morning, I finally got a response from Nuno saying he had received 100 booking requests that day but would try and fit me in. One double booking mishap later and myself and some friends were allocated a Saturday in September. Would it be worth the wait?

My first thoughts on arrival at Nuno’s East London home are: “God I wish I lived somewhere as cool as this – think of the dinner parties!” It is essentially a one-bedroom open-plan space with a huge minimalist dining room backing onto a professional’s kitchen. No sofas or telly though, so perhaps not.

Inside Nuno’s loft space, www.nunomendes.co.uk

We are all given a very moreish lychee cocktail to start off with accompanied by crostini and garlicky romanesco sauce. There are 16 places for dinner in total, making it fun having to mingle with strangers and see what everyone else is like (I’ve clearly been watching too much Come Dine With Me). I spy two of my friends laughing at a joke a couple have made – that they hope Nuno will be catering for vegetarians. It’s not a joke – how embarrassing. But the couple needn’t have worried; only one course ends up being meat which is unexpected but it doesn’t detract from the meal one iota.

There is no menu, we have around 10 courses each and Nuno introduces each one personally, at times suggesting if we should eat one in a particular manner. To my surprise, some of my favourite courses are veggy. There is an aubergine reduction in a shot glass accompanied by some aubergine roe and truffle oil. I am not usually a fan of aubergines but this was packed full of flavour and the roe, missing the tough skin and squashy flesh of its mothership; was much more palatable.

Nuno is Portuguese but has travelled all over the world and trained at El Bulli, which is reflected in his cooking. There is a ‘Thai Explosion’ course and Japanese references with seabass sushi and ponzu sauce. A modern version of French onion soup uses a molecular technique I’ve seen Ferran Adria discuss in a lecture - spherification. We are instructed to pop what looks like a cream coloured egg yolk into our mouths, filled with delicious oozy onion gel. We eat it in one go, followed by slivers of silky onion, crispy onion gratin and little tapioca balls.

The fish courses all taste really fresh and are mostly raw. There is a ‘warm prawn’ dish which may as well have been cooked in Nuno’s pocket; for seven minutes at 15°c, it’s not quite opaque but lacking the slimy texture of raw crustacean. Accompanied by pine nuts, radishes and a livid green pea sauce, it’s a simple dish and the taste is earthy and clean; a world away from the salty complexities of the onion soup.

There are firm razor clams with enoki mushrooms and crunchy pea shoots, followed finally by one meat dish: beef fillet, slow-cooked for three and a half hours at 50°c with mushrooms, a burnt onion jus and slick of thick mushroom caramel sauce on the side. Meltingly-tender and rich, I wolf it down and feel thoroughly sated. But in the words of the half-ton man, ‘there’s always room for more’.

A lot of these dishes are experimental and some don’t quite work. Fat Duck style, there is a breakfast course towards the end with hash browns and a ’slow-cooked’ (but still snotty) poached egg. With pear puree. Urgh. The ‘Thai Explosion’ tastes like bog standard Tom Kha and a half pudding/half vegetable dish of vanilla-infused cauliflower puree with strawberries is an adventurous campaign that should have been stifled during the thought process.

At £115 a head this is certainly one of the most expensive underground restaurants around and probably not the most relaxed either. However, all alcohol is included and providing you’re not a wine snob and you don’t drink as quickly as me you’ll find the drink front quite satisfactory. With regards to the food, albeit one or two discrepancies, I was consistently delighted and surprised throughout the evening. When it’s midnight, you’ve had nine courses and are still looking forward to the next, you know you are eating somewhere special.

Last years Edinburgh Festival winner David O’Doherty with his if.comedy award

The deal is the winner must be available to stay in Edinburgh for two weeks from August 15-30. They will be expected to see six shows a day, feeding back opinions daily. They must attend and contribute to the official panel meetings and the process of finding a winner.  In return, the Edinburgh Comedy Awards will provide  accommodation, travel, show tickets and invitations to the best parties. So let’s recap. You get to go to the Fringe, have everything paid for, laugh all day and your opinion counts towards who wins the highest accolade for live British comedy – previously won by the likes of Dylan Moran, the League of Gentlemen, Frank Skinner and Al Murray. Now, as Comedy Editor of Spoonfed I may be a little bit biased towards this comp but it’s hard to think of many people this wouldn’t appeal to.

Last year’s winning panellist, Alison Leitch, said: “Spending hours in darkened rooms in Edinburgh in pursuit of comedy award-winners is undoubtedly the way to spend August. The sheer variety of acts and quality of shows is astounding, and you attend each show with a real purpose. Spending time with the panel, talking comedy, was an education and a highlight. I thoroughly recommend it.”

Here is how to enter:

1. Visit www.comedyawards.co.uk/competition/ and tellThe Times in about 350 words why you are the best candidate.

2. You must also upload three reviews of your favourite live comedy acts.

3. Entries must reach them by Monday, June 15. If you are shortlisted, you will be required to attend an informal interview in London. Travel expenses will be reimbursed. The winner will be announced in The Times on July 10.

Terms and conditions:

1. Entrants must be 18 or over and resident in the UK.

2. Entrants must be available full time and able to reside in Edinburgh from August 15-30 3. The competition is not open to employees of the Festival Fringe Society or anyone connected professionally with the comedy business.

4. The prize is a position on the Edinburgh Comedy Awards judging panel for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009. The winner must attend approximately six shows a day and provide reviews for all shows attended.

5. Only one entry per person.

6. The winner will be chosen by the award director Nica Burns and the decision is final.

7. The prize is nontransferable. There will be no cash prize.

8. No responsibility will be taken for entries lost, delayed or incomplete.

9. All costs incurred by the winner other than travel and accommodation are at the winner’s expense.

EM

Woroniecki said that while the club has spread to several different venues and now has a weekly schedule he wants to avoid the ’stag party’ crowds that other mainstay comedy venues attract, namely by not letting any in!   Last night’s line-up (Pippa Evans, Shappi Khorsandi, Paul Foot and Nick Revell) were equally impressive and all apart from Nick are club residents.  The Comedy Store and Jongleurs should watch out because the 99 Club is branching out and appealing to a much more discerning audience.

EM

——–

E: So Jason, it’s your first big UK tour – how has it gone so far?
J: It’s gone alright we’ve just added a load more dates.  It started in September and it’s going to go on till mid March but I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t enjoying it.

E: So you don’t find it too soul-destroying being on the road and doing the same jokes again and again?

J: No it’s been alright, although the skeleton of the show is the same, like the bits about driving or my Dad, but to be honest I ask quite a lot of questions, I’ve noticed this over the last few nights,  I’ll ask people different questions and they always have different answers.  It’s quite exciting because you never know what they’re going to say, one night it went on for about 60 minutes!

E: Yeah – I read a review somewhere about a gig you did in Birmingham that lasted about two hours with a 45 minute encore – you obviously like giving people their money’s worth.

J: Well, there’s a credit crunch on Emma

E: I think Sarah Silverman should take a leaf out of your book.

J: Yeah, I should give her a half hour!

E: So what’s the show about because it doesn’t have a silly name like most, it’s just called The Jason Manford Tour.

J: Yeah I’m not really bothered to be honest, I thought if I added a title it would be Funny Things That I Think – so it’s just a few mad things and a bit of a funny chat really.

E:  Are you looking forward to your London gig because a lot of comedians say it’s a harder crowd to please down here?

J:  I don’t know obviously it’s different from my hometown in Manchester but I’ve always had a great time down here, at the end of the day everyone’s there for the same reason to have a laugh and you’re there to give them that.  Being Northern is a passport around the world really; sometimes I find that just having a different turn of phrase will get a laugh in London because it’s quaint!

E: Going back to how you got into comedy – your first gig was a bit of an accident wasn’t it?

J:  It was.  I was working at the comedy club, collecting glasses and a couple of comics didn’t turn up, so I stepped in.  I mean I’d been itching to do it so it wasn’t totally unprepared. I was only 17 and I’d wanted to do it.

E: So what happened after that did you just get the comedy bug and decide to do loads more gigs?

J: I just went on the open mic circuit and it went alright, somebody told me early on if you think you did a good gig somewhere then make sure you don’t do it again for free so it cost me a lot of gigs because I thought they gone badly!   I carried on doing gigs on the circuit and was lucky enough to win the North West Comic of the Year Award.

E: Yes, because you quickly won quite a few awards didn’t you, like the North West Comedian of the Year and the Mercury and the Perrier nomination in 2005.  Did the Perrier nomination open a lot of doors for you at that point?

J: Yes it did but after that it was difficult because you’re only prepared for 7 minutes of stand-up and then people are asking you to play their club for 30 minutes and you don’t have enough material.  I took a step back and went to University.  I did a course in script writing and acting and that helped, I found suddenly I had half an hour of material. Then I had an idea about urban legends which is something I’ve always been interested in and that’s what I took to Edinburgh and led to the Perrier.

E:  What’s Edinburgh like, is it quite terrifying the first time round?

J: It’s not doing the actual gigs that’s scary, it’s the potential amount of money you could lose.  Even when I went back in 2007 and did an hour’s show every night; it was 150 seats and I’d just done 8 Out of 10 Cats so it was sold out most nights and in the end I got a cheque for £200!  I was like how the heck have I only made £200?!

E:  That’s ridiculous – after all the costs and stuff had been added up?

J: Everyone takes their slice.

E: God and you were a successful comic, I can’t imagine what it must be like for newcomers.

J: Exactly!

E: Did you hear what Doug Stanhope did this year?

J:  It was a good idea wasn’t it – one gig for £7,349 (the estimated average amount of money it costs a comedian to take a show to Edinburgh)

E: It backfired when no one took him up on it though!  Around that time when you were just getting into comedy, you were hailed as the ‘next Peter Kay’.  Are you two friends?

J: Well I know Peter yes but I can’t see it myself, I’m from Manchester and he’s from Bolton and has a broad Lancashire accent so in the North it doesn’t happen as much and people don’t say it.  Because I’m not very rude and I don’t swear it’s an easy pigeonhole.  I think Michael McIntyre is similar to Peter, not through accent or delivery but he’s got a similar comic eye.  To be honest I wish I was more like that because I’d love to be able to pick out those foibles of everyday life and he’s got hundreds!  A lot of my stuff is more story-based.

E: What other comedians do you rate apart from him and Michael McIntyre?

J: Well it’s brilliant working with Jimmy and Sean every week because we’re all so different.

E:  That must be the best job working on 8 out of 10 Cats – it just looks like you have such a laugh the whole time.

J: It is.  It’s like a little family and Jimmy’s got a gag about everything, he’s got a rolodex for a brain! Sean is always original and quite surreal– a lot of his stuff seems to be on DIY I find!  It’s a good dynamic the three of us I think.

E: Who’s the worst guest you’ve ever had on?

J:  It’s hard to say – probably one of those Big Brother people.  They don’t get given jokes or come up with any and some are so full of themselves they become a joke rather than having the jokes.

E: Do you ever get to say who you’d like to have on?

J: Yeah, I phoned the producer today actually and said I’d like to get the fella from FoneJacker on.  I saw him on Soccer AM and thought he’s be great.

E: You were fairly rubbish at lying on ‘Would I Lie to You’ – would you say you’re a bad liar in general?

J: Yeah, I’m not very good but that’s a good thing – that show’s really hard!  The day before you meet a researcher and they chat to you and you can just talk for ages about your whole life and some of it’s normal and then you can go “ooh there was this one time…” and then you never know what they’re going to use because you give them so much.  Then you get given a card with a lie on it and you have to go for it.  It’s not like 8 out of 10 Cats when you can prepare and you know what the big stories are going to be from the week.

E: Do you prefer TV or stand-up?

J:  Stand-up I prefer because you’re hearing all the laughter and you can see people’s faces having a laugh whereas with telly it’s a delayed response, so essentially stand-up, but they both work together – the pressure of having to come up with topical material for 8 out of 10 Cats then gives you stuff you can use on stage.

E:  You did Live at The Apollo in front of 3,000 people. Are you now totally relaxed in front of a huge crowd?

J: Of course you’ve got the live audience to entertain but I think that show has more than 5 or 6 million viewers or something and it’s repeated so it was scary walking out on stage but at the same time I was aware it was on telly. There was one point where I messed up a line and I just let it go and then later on I just did the line again and they edited it back in but  the live audience were going ‘he’s just said that!’  When it comes to the live edit however, you think:  “Well who’s the winner now?!”

E:  Yeah, I think getting it right for 5 million beats 3,000!

E: You finished your radio show on XFM Manchester earlier this year – do you miss it or were you relieved to finally get a lie-in?

J:  I miss the interaction and being part of people’s lives in the morning, you imagine yourself in people’s kitchens having a chat, or on the passenger seat on their way to work and you get some really bizarre texts or phone-ins.   One of my last shows we got a text saying ‘If you could have any animal the size of a dog – what would you have?’, and I thought a giraffe would be really good – a dog-sized giraffe. Imagine walking that in the park!  People’s imaginations get ignited and I just thought that is something I would never have thought of sat round in my living room.  I don’t miss getting up at  four in the morning, it never got easy and during the first series of 8 out of 10 Cats I would film on the Thursday night in London and then drive back to Manchester to get up for the breakfast show.  The first hour would just be me shouting!

E: Have you ever Googled yourself?

J:  I have done yeah when I’ve been bored in a hotel room but you can’t let the positives go to your head as much as the negatives, I try to just ignore them all really and if someone leaves me a message saying I enjoyed your gig then of course I’ll e-mail them back and say thank you very much but generally I try to avoid it.   I do like how everyone gets stuck in on Facebook though and it’s a good way of being more interactive with your fans. I posted a status update on it before the Secret Policeman’s Ball saying: “Jason is wondering what material to do for the Secret Policeman’s Ball” and people said ‘Oh why don’t you do that bit because I really enjoyed it in Stafford’ and it worked out well, people were very complimentary about it.

E:  What’s next on the agenda – because you can act and I’ve heard you like singing – would you like to try theatre or do big films?

J: I think with everyone’s career your horizons become your middle distance, all those things you aim for – eventually a couple you’ll get and then you have to make do.  I’ve got a couple of sitcoms in the pipeline and I’ve got a few ideas for stuff on stage, hopefully 8 out of 10 Cats will run and run – you look at Have I Got News and that went on for 36  series and I wouldn’t mind just half of that.

E: That’s the beauty of it – it never gets stale because it’s topical.

J: Exactly as long as the news changes every day we’ll be fine.  That runs till the end of November, I’ve got some time off for Christmas and then around March is when TV season kicks back in and you do pilots for whatever pops up, so yeah, I’m pretty busy – if it all goes well anyway!

E: Well thank you very much for talking to me Jason and lots of luck with the London gig!

J:  Thanks Emma, take care.

Read the Jason Manford Interview on Spoonfed or read more of Emma’s comedy articles!

Our Comedy Editor Emma had a chance to sit down with comedians and musical group The Kransky Sisters who will be performing in October at The Big Joke Festival at the Leicester Square Theatre. You can find her full article here: London Comedy: October.

EM: Mourne, Eve and Dawn, hello.

You usually stay at home in rural Queensland apart from when you occasionally travel down to Sydney for gigs in your Morris Major. Now you’re travelling all over the world and touring big cities like London and Stockholm. How are you finding this new lifestyle?

Kranskys: It’s nice. It’s a big world. The ship takes a long time and the seas can be treacherous, but after all, it’s not the journey that counts is it? It’s the destination. There are interesting customs in the far away countries. Last year we tried to wear the wooden shoes we bought in Holland, but we all got blisters and had to go to Dr. Pearce for lancing. We nailed the wooden shoes to the wall as an ornament above the mantelpiece where we keep our trophies, they make a nice ornament, and a place for the wasps to nest. We saw some wasps on our travels last year in England. They’re bigger over there. Like the buses. They have two floors, and both cost the same. There are many interesting things to look at when you’re travelling. We once had a stick insect stuck to the windscreen wiper.

EM: You’ve performed at the Edinburgh Fringe before and got some fantastic reviews – do you enjoy doing shows over here?

Kranskys: Yes. We certainly do. We especially enjoy meeting the lovely people. Sometimes when you don’t mean to be funny people laugh but that’s alright. Each to their own. It’s nice to share our stories and the music and songs we learn from our radio at home, and our car wireless. Our father glued it to the dashboard in 1966, it still works. Radios are so much better than televisions. We’ve never had one of those. There are plenty of pictures outside our windscreen.

EM: You play with some pretty unusual instruments like the musical saw, what inspired you to play them and were they hard to learn?

Kranskys: Our father gave Eve the musical saw when she was five. She’s played it ever since. Our father used to play the violin, but it made him cry once, so he stopped. Our mother wasn’t around to see it. She was over at Mr. Givisit’s house collecting the milk. Dawn learnt the tuba with money given to her by her father. Her father is not our father. He was the reason our father left. We play many different instruments including an old 1960’s reed keyboard, tambourines, the toilet brush, and kitchen pot and biscuit tin. Listening to the songs on the wireless inspires us to play the instruments. Sometimes we have to wait quite a while for the song to be played again, so we can pick up where we left off in the tune. We have pickles and cheese and a glass of milk while we’re waiting. It fills in the time, and makes for a hearty meal. On Fridays we eat white stew with boiled potatoes. Our mother taught us how to make the white stew when she lived at the house. While we stirred the pot, she used to count the rows of stitches in the doilies and chant.

EM: The songs you cover are a very eclectic mix from Marvin Gaye to Steppenwolf, AC/DC, Talking Heads and the Sugababes. Do you have a favourite genre or is it pot luck with what gets played over the wireless? Have you ever considered getting an ipod?

Kranskys: We just like to pick the tunes that remind us of somewhere we’ve been, or something that has happened. Something that reminds us of our travels, or our childhood. Those are the ones we like to pick the most. Michael Jackson was a favourite of ours. The ‘Thriller’ reminds us of our nightmares. Oh, and the Skyhooks, Horror Movie. Nana Mouskouri is nice. We like the song, ‘Try to Remember’. We can’t sometimes, but it helps to remind yourself.

EM: One of your covers ‘Pop Musik’ you heard in a disco at a night called Stark Raving Mad. Did you have a good experience? Would you go out clubbing again?

Kranksys: Those clubs are a bit strange. They look like one big dressing room, but no-one is putting their clothes back on. They are not kept well at all either. There was some sort of electricity problem the night we went to one, because the lights wouldn’t stop flashing on and off. They were faulty. Then there was a terrible screeching, scratching sound and smoke was everywhere. We left straight after we called the fire brigade.

EM: All three of you are unmarried and prefer not to have any dalliances with men but Mourne you were once keen on a man called Glen Davies. Would you not like to have some male company or go on a few dates?

Mourne: Glen Davies worked with me at the Egg Farm. He was very nice to me. When I dropped the egg on Charmaine Wilkinson’s moccasin, he stopped her from clamping my head with the carton stapler. But not long after that, Charmaine tripped over Glen’s shoe at the Peckers Pass Xmas Party and caught her hair in his laces. Ever since then, they’ve been tied together. I never got an opportunity.

EM: Mourne – you are the eldest and seem to have a firm hand over your sisters, do you think you are a little too strict with them at times?

Mourne: If a donkey strays away from its manger, it won’t return unless the farmer waves the stick, will it? Our mother taught us that if you stay alert you will keep things from breaking. Orderly fashion is good fashion sense, and if the shoe fits, don’t tear it. No. Not stern, just practical.

EM: You all knit and Mourne you write poetry too – do you have any other hidden talents?

Mourne: I think we’d all really rather you didn’t bring that one up. Knits are not a nice thing to get. Yes. We have all had them, but it wasn’t our fault. Our neighbour Mrs. Winks’ nephew still goes to primary school. With regards to my poetry, I have written some poems. My latest poem, “Where Do You Go To When You’re Ugly?” was entered in the Esk Fair Alphabet Jumble Prize. The poem didn’t win, but the submission letter did.

EM: Eve – are you still sleepwalking? Have there been any more incidents since you were found sucking a cow’s teet?

Eve: Mourne wasn’t happy that I used all the porridge oats in the washing machine. The blouses still smell like breakfast.

EM: Dawn – why are you living in the neighbour’s laundry rather than at home with your sisters?

Mourne: Dawn moved into Mrs. Evermore’s house after she returned from hospital. She wanted the spare room upstairs, but that is Eve’s and my craft room. She’s happy over there. She likes the clothes mangle, for flattening toad skins.

EM: Finally, what has happened to Arva – is it likely we shall ever see her again in any of your shows?

Mourne: Arva is away working with the Hornbell Military Marching Band. It all started when she saw the Military Tattoo at the Edinburgh Festival when we were there in 2006. She was down there every day watching the horns. When we returned home, our neighbour Mrs. Boyle, saw her exchanging sheet music with a member of the Marching Band. Not long after that, she was gone. We received a letter , covered in gravy, saying she had six chops for breakfast. She gets free food in the army.

EM: Well, thank you very much Kransky Sisters, having heard all about your unusual lives and your music, I can’t wait to see you perform!

This is an extension of an interview from Spoonfed.co.uk.  You can find the original article here: London Comedy: October.