THE THAI CAPITAL’S only English-language comedy venue, The Comedy Club Bangkok, is celebrating its second anniversary with a special treat – Jimmy Carr live in Bangkok. With the first show on September 11 selling out in two days and tickets for the second later that night booked within a week, the organiser recently managed to secure a third show on September 12 to satisfy die-hard fans of the UK’s best comedy import.
More than two million people have now seen Carr perform live and his latest tour has had him performing some 200 dates across four continents. Now it’s Bangkok’s turn to share the joy. One of the biggest selling live acts in UK comedy, Carr is bringing his brand new show, “Funny Business” to The Westin Grande Sukhumvit.
Carr’s television credits include 18 series as host of panel show “8 Out of 10 Cats”, 10-plus years as host of Channel 4’s “Big Fat Quiz of The Year” and three appearances on “The Royal Variety Performance”. He has also regularly appeared on such shows as “QI” and “A League of Their Own”, was one of the stars of Channel 4’s “10 O’ Clock Live” and has been a guest on several chat shows including “The Jonathan Ross Show”, “Graham Norton” and “Alan Carr: Chatty Man”.
Live comedy is what Carr does best. Known for his witty, painfully funny and satirical one-liners, his stand-up achievements to date include a British Comedy Award for ‘Best Live Stand-Up Tour’ and a Perrier Award nomination. On stage, he’s even funnier and even more outrageous and “Funny Business” promises to have audiences rolling in the aisles.
“This is our biggest international guest act so far,” enthuses Chris Wegoda, comedian and creative director of The Comedy Club Bangkok. “He’s one of the biggest in the world and I’ve long dreamed of Jimmy coming to Bangkok. His jokes are so beautifully written and simple and he’s supremely relaxed on stage. This show will set a benchmark for the future. Aside from being pretty much the biggest international British comedian right now, he’s also one of my biggest influences.”
The show will be packed with one-liners, stories and jokes – some clever, some rude and a few totally unacceptable. Come for the witty and incisive musings on the human condition and stay for the knob gags.
“Jimmy Carr has a very distinct style. He basically tells joke jokes, one after the other along with crowd work. The show narrative is basically that we are going on a journey of comedy and offence and how comedy can conquer! Jimmy’s had a very good following internationally, so I would imagine the Bangkok audience’s will find him hilarious. He’s a master, a grand wizard and a Brit,” Wegoda continues.
With the ever-expanding market for comedy, Wegoda sees more big acts gracing the Bangkok stage in the near future.
“Stand-up comedy and comedy in general has a huge market in Bangkok. The immediate audience is, of course, English speaking expats but we’ve seen a steady increase in our Thai audience. We also have some huge plans on the horizon for expanding the scene, especially with Thais in mind. Watch this space.”

Jimmy Carr’s added third show is on Monday, September 12 at The Westin Grande Sukhumvit Hotel close to Asoke BTS.
The show starts at 8.
Tickets costing from Bt1,800 are available from http://www.ComedyClubBangkok.com.

Savour Bangkok’s melting pot of culture, traditions and modernity with Ananda Everingham and discover the vibrant flavours of Asia’s leading culinary hub in Life Inspired’s new original series, “Taste Bangkok”, which premieres on Sunday.
The series follows Ananda as he samples traditional Thai cuisine from top Bangkok restaurants like Nahm, before moving on to progressive Thai cuisine at Issaya Siamese Club. Bangkok’s formidable array of international traditional and progressive cuisine are also highlighted through award-winning, fine-dining establishments such as L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Gaggan and trends in international cuisine as seen through the eyes of world-acclaimed chefs choosing to live and cook in Bangkok are explored.
The two-part food travelogue produced in collaboration with the Tourism Authority Of Thailand (TAT) aims to highlight Bangkok’s gastronomic scene and the traditional, progressive and fusion cuisines that are inspired by Thailand’s food culture and which are elevated into elegant dishes in the city’s finest establishments.
We sat down with Ananda, who is also producing the series, for a chat about the show.

How did you get involved in the programme?
I was initially involved in the project as producer and scriptwriter. I’ve never been a TV host and it was not really my thing so I offered suggestions on who should be the host of the programme. But in the end it was agreed that I would host and provide some insights to the programme, too. So here you go – my debut as a TV host.

Are you a foodie?
Yes, big time. I love eating and looking for new places to eat. A lot of time I travel abroad just to eat. That’s especially true of Japan where I spent 90 per cent of my time eating. I enjoy food programmes by chefs like Anthony Bourdain because they present food and cooking in new, interesting ways though I am not keen at all on those corny, mundane cooking shows.

What kinds of food did you grow up with?
My mother is Laotian and my father is Australian, so I grew up with both Eastern and Western cultures and I loved the dishes from both worlds. As a kid I spent a lot of time in the Indian restaurant, Himali Cha Cha, which was owned and operated by my parents. I guess that was how I developed an adventurous palate and mindset about food. I couldn’t be picky or fussy because my father would force me to eat whatever was on my plate, from pasta to pla ra. And when I grew up, I started to like travelling and sightseeing. I soon realised that one way to learn about new cultures is through indigenous food. So besides looking around and visiting places, I taste the local food, too. Food is universal, and you know instantly when you are talking to cooks, chefs and people who are passionate about food. There are two things I spend most of my money on: motorcycles and food!

What’s your favourite cuisine?
I can’t pick one! But if I had to survive on one type of cuisine, it would definitely be Thai. Generally, I like salty, smelly food. Any dish with a pungent smell is really attractive to me. My favourite ingredient is the uni or sea urchin. It’s great with just about anything.

Do you also like to cook?
Normally no, but I tend to cook when I’ve had a few drinks [laughs]. When I get tipsy I take whatever’s in the fridge and make something. But I like the restaurant business and the service industry. Like most people with an urban lifestyle, I eat out a lot, especially around Soi Ari where I live.

Where do you like to eat out in Bangkok?
I don’t have “favourite places” but more like favourite Italian places, places I go for seafood, places I go for Thai and things like that. But I eat at khao tom restaurants a lot, because I like that kind of restaurant. I usually go to Lao Lao near Ari and Soei near Sam Sen railway station.

Are your favourite joints included in the programme?
I made a list of places I like, and we’ve tried to meet half way so we have a variety in the selection. My personal request, Pla Dib in Soi Ari, is featured as the entry point to Bangkok’s gastronomic world. It was very exciting to go to new places and try new foods, especially at Nahm. It literally blew my mind.

Why are they all up-market, high-end places?
That’s actually our intention. We want to show that Bangkok is not just about street food, and Thai food is not just tom yum, phad tai and som tum. We want to show how flavours in Thai food are created and constructed, and how diverse they have become. But we also talk a little bit about the history of Thai food. We are not trying to educate the audience and tell them what Thai food is – no one can. Our aim is to make “Taste Bangkok” an entry point for foreign and Thai audiences alike to get to know Thai food and the culinary scene in Bangkok. We scratch the surface for you, and hopefully that gets you to explore further and fall back in love with food again.

What do the two episodes entail?
I’ll take you around town, visiting the restaurants we have selected and meeting with the chefs who are the masterminds behind these wonderful gastronomic creations. You’ll get the basic information about their foods, the highlight dishes and the concepts. We are not reviewing the food but taking the viewer “backstage” where the chefs talk about their techniques, their inspiration and how they create their food.

What did you learn from making the programme?
A lot. It’s been a real eye-opener I thought I knew Thai food, just like a lot of Thais that think they know Thai food, but actually we don’t. What we think we know in this globalised world is very superficial. Once you know how each dish is made the traditional way, you have much more respect to the cuisine. I had never been to Nahm and I must admit I was a little sceptical. But David Thompson just blew my mind and opened up the world of Thai food. He has been living here 30 years. He took me to the kitchen and made some home-cooked dishes for us, explaining the history of each dish, telling us how each dish got its name and why and how certain ingredients are used. I learned a lot from each restaurant that we visited. We also went to Italian, Indian and Japanese restaurants to showcase Bangkok’s potential to become one of the world’s leading food destinations.

As a foodie do you think of Bangkok as food destination?
Yes definitely. During the past couple of years, we’ve seen much more diversity in terms of levels of the restaurants and styles of cuisine. You could say that people can now come to Bangkok just to enjoy food, and we’re second to none in Asia in that regard. Also the Thai playfulness and friendliness makes the culinary scene light-hearted, genuine and not stuffy. Thai people know how to adapt and make it their way. You get fine-dining French restaurants here that feel more relaxed and comfortable than their counterparts in France and at the same time the quality is top-notch. Not a lot of cities in the world can do this.
I don’t normally agree with everything Tourism Authority of Thailand does, but the project to promote Bangkok as a food destination gets my full support. For so long we’ve been branded with the “sin city” cliche, a chaotic town and a place where everyone can do whatever they want, and it’s time we showed the world a different side.

Creative cuisine
”Taste Bangkok” premieres on Sunday at 9.30pm on Life Inspired.

CLAP ALONG if you like … “The Williams Family Kitchen” project will be spelling out plenty of “Happy” moments when it is launched at Dean & Deluca next year.
The kitchen is the brainchild of producer, singer and songwriter Pharrell Williams who was in town with his parents earlier this week to announce the family’s collaboration with Dean & Deluca on a new product line set to be in the shop in time for spring.
“It’s a dream come true,” Williams Junior says.
Setting his sights, albeit briefly, on the food world, the hip-hop star flew in from Los Angeles to tell news-hungry reporters that while he doesn’t cook, he is “super proud” to be able to support his parents in this project.
“I don’t have the ingredients, cooking is not what I do but today I’m over here to punctuate and to be an exclamation mark. It’s an honour to help my dad turn his cooking pastime into a business through this Dean & Deluca collaboration. His recipes are so good – my whole family is addicted to his cooking. Our father-son agreement was that he would make food with healthier ingredients that were a better choice for his lifestyle and would essentially help add years to his life. The kitchen is where everyone hangs out to talk and eat, hence the name,” told the press.
“It’s cool. It’s awesome to be here in Thailand.”
Not much information has been unveiled about what “The Willams Family Kitchen” will feature though it is expected that the line of speciality products will be based on authentic Williams’ family recipes.
“We’ll start with something that everybody enjoys on a sunny day outside on the terrace and everything that could go around that,” added Charles Finch, Dean & Deluca’s vice chairman. Sitting with Finch and the guests in a well-appointed room at the luxury Mahanakorn Cube building on Narathiwas Road, was Sorapoj Techakrisri, chief executive of Thai property developers of Pace Development, which acquired Dean & Deluca in 2014.
Finch says that the idea was first kicked around a couple of years back and collaboration between the Williams family and Dean & Deluca started in earnest nine months ago.
“By partnering with a powerhouse like Pharrell, Sorapoj and I are building on Dean and Deluca’s history of excellence as a curator of some of the world’s most premium products,” he told the press conference.
“We are honoured that Pharrell and his family have entrusted us with their beloved personal recipes,” Sorapoj added. “Given Charles’ expertise in both the luxury and entertainment arena and my passion for food, our vision for the brand is clearly reflected in this collaboration.”
Dean & Deluca currently has 12 branches in the US and six in Thailand and there are plans to expand this number to between 300-400 branches around the world by 2019, with a particular focus on Thailand, the USA and Japan.
The Grammy award-winning artist says he loves everything his father cooks but isn’t keen on onions.
“I’ve always had a thing about onions. Onions are onions, you know,” he says with a laugh. “If I were food, I would like to be something with anti-oxidants in it. A blueberry maybe! Seriously, my father’s speciality is his ribs.”
Asked if the project will distract him from his music, the producer says that the food is not about him and reiterates his pride in his parents.
“As for a song …. I never known what song I’m gonna do but I’ll certainly let you know.”