Show Rating:

The first time Chortle tried to review this show, Ness was having a quiet Friday, with an audience comprising me and one slightly bewildered punter. Under the circumstances most comics would cancel, but Ness showed guts by insisting the show must go on. The result was more a one-sided chat, with the strangely quiet punter seen as a serial killer in Ness’ fecund imagination.

So a second attempt was made and this time, thankfully, Ness had a healthier number in and the show kicked off properly.

Ness has fortitude and confidence in abundance. Much of his material is heavily confessional, in the space of an hour we wince at his painful haemorrhoids, sympathise with his experience of testicular cancer and cringe at the stories of the loosening of his bowels due to irritable bowel syndrome. It’s almost too confessional and as he is wide open about himself, when he asks pertinent questions of individual members of the crowd he expects an answer - fine for the extroverts but embarrassing for the shyer, unforthcoming type.

In addition, rather than simply flirting (as many acts do) with whichever fella he has taken a shine to on the front row, he’s, touchy-feely, to a potentially invasive degree.

But the main problem here is that the material is too light on decent gags for Ness to get away with the explicit content. Though there are some nice lines about blood type, a gay old people’s home and his mum playing badminton in the garden, but the material on chavs is merely a list of observations without a punchline, and his comments on beggars just come across as uncharitable. Plus potentially funny material can be lost in fast-paced talk that sometimes results in a lack of diction.

Reviewed by: Marissa Burgess