Four funny Nights
Hampton Beach Comedy Festival returns
Through the years, some things haven’t changed at the Hampton Beach Comedy Festival. Rule No. 1 is that every comic there has to make Jimmy Dunn laugh. Rule No. 2 is that he has to like them — after all, the whole thing began as a hang in 2009, when Dunn, a year-round beach resident, invited a bunch of his friends for a barbecue that ended with a show at Ashworth by the Sea.
It grew to four nights, with many of the same faces, and a few new ones every year working the crowds, then repairing to Playland Arcade for a highly competitive hybrid of cards and skee-ball, followed by after-hours poker — basically a comedy festival that’s an excuse for a rolling party.
“I got my crew of comics, my friends, and it’s sort of how comedy works in New England,” Dunn said in a recent phone interview as he ran down this year’s lineup. “I try and mix it up, bring in some comics that I don’t generally put on shows with me … give some other people opportunities and mix it up for the fans.”
Making their debut are John Reiman, a comedy veteran who spent several years as a writer on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
“He’s been around forever, we just never were able to get him,” Dunn said. “He’s very funny, and he grew up in North Hampton, so he’s also a hometown guy.”
Another newcomer is Peter Martin, a Boston comic whom Dunn calls “explosively funny … I did a show with him; I was watching him just destroy a room, and I went, ‘Oh, man. I don’t know if I could follow this kid tonight.’ That’s how he got my attention. Since then, I’ve seen him a bunch of times.”
Will Noonan was a newcomer in the festival’s early days who’s grown into a regional headliner. Dunn remembers Noonan as an eager-to-please youngster when he first arrived.
“He had this Elvis Costello suit on, and he went up and absolutely killed it,” he said in 2019. “I was like, ‘Who is this kid? This is awesome!’ We’ve become really good buddies.”
Among those also returning are longtime favorite Lamont Price, Kelly MacFarland, Mark Riley, Dan Boulger and Chris D, who first performed in 2019. There are seven or eight comics on each show, making for a rapid-fire night of laughs, and special guests are always a strong possibility.
As in past years, Dunn will close each night, and Dave Rattigan will host.
That the festival is happening at all is a minor miracle. A last-minute offer from Tom McGuirk, who owns the eponymous Ocean View Hotel & Restaurant, saved the long weekend.
“He said, ‘Hey, we’d love to have it down here,’ and we looked at it and said, ‘This would be really cool,’” Dunn said. “I guess he’d been to a few of the festivals in the past at the Ashworth and is a comedy fan.”
The Ashworth was “in over their heads with staffing issues and trying to get all the weddings through that they could, and they just couldn’t accommodate us,” Dunn said. “We lucked out, because I thought we were done.”
Dunn’s best friend Tony V. will perform. The two have a podcast called Two Boston Guys Whack Up A Pie.
“The premise was we’d get together and get some kind of pie, apple, blueberry, sit there and have a slice. That’s just such a Boston expression — ‘You want to whack up a large pizza pie?’ But we found out pretty quickly that people didn’t like hearing us eat at the same time we’re talking.”
The show is usually Dunn and Tony V. commiserating about current events and comedy, but recently they hosted Bobcat Goldthwait, who’s been a friend of both since their open mic days in Cambridge at the Ding Ho and other clubs.
“He eats like everybody else,” Dunn said. “He’s getting back out on the road doing stand-up and wanted to plug some dates up here in New England. We get along great with Bob, so we had him on. Technically, it was not our best episode, but he’s a really funny man.”
— Michael Witthaus
Hampton Beach Comedy Festival
When: Thursday, Aug. 19, to Sunday, Aug. 22, at 8 p.m.
Where: McGuirk’s Ocean View, 98 Ocean Blvd., Hampton
Tickets: $20/show at happsnow.com
Thursday
Jimmy Dunn
Chris D
Dan Boulger
Mike Whitman
Dan Crohn
Liam McGurk
Graig Murphy
Dave Rattigan
Friday
Jimmy Dunn
Will Noonan
Jeff Koen
Steve Scarfo
Tony V
Janet McNamara
Dave Rattigan
Saturday
Jimmy Dunn
Steve Bjork
Lamont Price
Dan Miller
Carolyn Plummer
Andrew Della Volpe
Don Zollo
Dave Rattigan
Sunday
Jimmy Dunn
Kelly MacFarland
Mark Riley
Jason Merrill
Peter Martin
Jon Rineman
Dave Rattigan
Photo credit: Jimmy Dunn. Courtesy photo.
