Gig review by Steve Bennett

Oh dear. Jen Kirkman is not having an easy time of Latitude. 

The American comic gets distracted by the music from a neighbouring tent, which she mistakes for an audience member firing up a ghetto-blaster. She faffs around looking for the clock on stage, which she later loses again fretting about how much time she’s got left. She’s worried about the children in the tent and then has to dig herself out of a hole when she says the wrong thing – nothing rude, but an ill-advised comment about Santa that probably horrified parents. She feels bad about her hair. She says there’s no marriage equality in the UK, and when the audience put her right, apologises and says she just forgot was thinking or Ireland (huh?) - then asks the audience not to put her mistake  on the internet (oops). And finally she complains she can’t hear the laughter from the room.

There may be a reason for that. Laid-back festival audiences are certainly harder to provoke into reaction than those in clubs or theatres, but lack of laughter was not a problem David O’Doherty or Mark Watson, performing either side of her, experienced.

Some of this is down to her chaotically casual approach, which she ascribes to jet lag, but comes across as a lack of care about the audience, which is then reciprocated. Her material, too, is way too conversational, with too few moments that seem like punchlines. Such an unaffected approach has made her a popular podcaster, but it feels too slight for stand-up.

The largest section she performed today – ahead of a week-long run in London – seemed like an instructional talk on why it’s not appropriate to cat-call women in the street, a message tempered by some sympathy for the typical male inability to articulate emotions in any other way. The through line is a real-life encounter she had with a truck driver in North Carolina, and while it’s interesting and opinionated enough to hold the audience, only the occasional aside even aims for funny, and usually quite mildly so.

It’s typical of a set that doesn’t seem to be trying hard enough to get laughs. Elsewhere she recreates an awkward exchange she had with a shop assistant that, too, could do with more embellishment; and she tells us about her tattoo, which is as mildly interesting as anyone else telling you about their tattoos. She undercuts it with a strongly self-deprecating line that’s the best in the show - but it’s a punchline based on the fact her story’s not that compelling. And the unfortunate truth is that most of the routines that she ran out today fell into the same category.

Review date: 17 Jul 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett