Mowten’s an instantly likeable stand-up with bags of charm and an easy manner.
As a relatively new comic, his set is all over the place, with all sorts of styles and approaches to finding the laughs - but the best of it offers tantalising glimpses into what he could have to offer in the future.
His opening gambit is to bare his substantial stomach on stage, which he pats and caresses as he makes rather ordinary jokes about being bulimic but forgetting to throw up, before reciting a poem to the flab. You might remember the image of his bare belly, but it’s a gimmicky move, without the strength of material to back it up.
But he soon proves capable of better, such as his a quirky routine about the websites used to show Al Qaeda beheadings. Not the most instantly hilarious of subjects, but Mowten has found a clever way to extract the comedy.
More interesting, however, was what he doesn’t get properly into – his mixed-race marriage, his membership of a cult, his time in a mental hospital. These things are mentioned in passing, giving an edge to his cuddly persona, and suggesting a great depth of material yet to be mined.
These experiences will surely lead to much better material than exposing his beer gut ever will…
