Reviewer Tim Harding gives a rundown of the comedy he's been watching in London in the last two weeks.
It can feel a little telling when you catch up with a comic who you used to consider to be defined by their youth and inexperience, and suddenly they’re talking about getting divorced, or becoming a parent for the second time. What’s next, Ed Night in an old folk’s home?
Jacob Hawley is one such comedian for me. Nice jumper from Stone Island; good head of hair; presumably in his late teens? And now crafting a whole show about assisting in the home delivery of his second child.
Hawley is perhaps best known for Jacob Hawley On Drugs, his radio series exploring drugs and drug culture, but I’d never seen him live before. Space is in the story plus digressions format often favoured for Edinburgh shows, where a 15-minute central anecdote forms the backbone of the hour, and is given regular jumping-off points so that the comic can get into political or observational material along the way.
Hawley’s focus, aside from the compelling home birth story, is often on the disconnect between his working-class background and the context he now finds himself in – an Islington parent with liberal views and a job in the arts.
It’s a charismatic contradiction, and a great vantage point from which to skewer middle-class pretensions, but there’s a slight sense of casting around for a specific hook on which to hang the material.
Drugs was a good one, while he had it. There are still few comics who are as open to (and good at) discussing recreational drug use as Hawley is, but that perspective understandably shrinks in the rear-view mirror a little when you’re a new parent.
Still, he’s a strong all-rounder, fiercely articulate on politics and matters of the heart, but retaining an essential warmth. It’s tough to imagine him losing a room.
Also in a transitional phase is Harriet Kemsley, now a single parent to a young daughter having recently divorced from fellow comic Bobby Mair. Despite her increasing success and appearances on TV, I’ve long maintained that Kemsley is one of the most underrated comics out there. Go on, book her for Taskmaster! She’d come last but she’d be fantastic.
Although having said that, I think Kemsley works quite hard to project the image of someone who’d score badly on Taskmaster, but, like Lou Sanders there’s a pin-sharp wit and innate understanding of structure under the chaos. That’s exemplified by her latest show, Everything Always Works Out For Me. Wobbly, easily overwhelmed and beset by misfortunes great and small, it’s a masterclass in how to accentuate elements of your personality in service of a distinctive stage persona.
This show starts gently with some observations about the modern dating landscape – observations which are given a little more room on her great podcast with Amy Gledhill, Single Ladies In Your Area, btw – but the back half is a more gossipy and fast-paced, with a number of very funny revelations about things that have gone wrong for her in the past year. I enjoyed myself tremendously.
Late to the party on this one, but Flo & Joan have created one of the shows of the year with their One Man Musical at the Soho Theatre (and transferring to Undebelly Boulevard in the new year), a musical biopic of Andrew Lloyd Webber featuring George Fouracres absolutely tearing up the stage in the central role, so magnetic and relentlessly funny that he’s sort of recalibrated me for all the other comic performances I’ve seen this year.
It’s a delight to see Flo & Joan in their on-stage role as backing band cracking up behind him despite presumably having seen him do his thing hundreds of times by now. As writers of the show, they’ve pulled out all the stops, and given him a suite of songs with a genuine Webberish sweep, plus delightful details like the incessant quaffing of Yazoo and a wonderful use of Webber on rollerskates to address the mystery of Starlight Express.
Sincerely, my only constructive note coming away from it was that I think ALW at leisure should wear a kimono rather than a dressing gown.
For a change of pace, I was lucky enough to catch a showing of Michael Cumming’s Oxide Ghosts, an autobiographical documentary film based around his time as director of Brass Eye, currently only available to view as part of a nationwide tour of cinemas.
The film largely comprises unreleased material from the series, which is the real draw for any devoted followers of Chris Morris, although like most compilations of deleted scenes, the explanation for why those scenes didn’t make the cut is often an issue of merit rather than anything more glamorous.
For men of my age, an intense parasocial relationship with Chris Morris bordering on idolatry is seen as chic, and I don’t blame Cumming for trading off it. For many of us, Brass Eye and The Day Today still stand somewhere on a distant mountaintop, overshadowing any other TV comedy that’s been produced in the last 30 years, so ahead of its time that it’s beginning to look like the world will never catch up.
Having said that, there’s something odd about the experience offered by the Oxide Ghosts roadshow.
Frequently, I felt like I was sitting in a pub with someone I only knew through a mutual friend, discussing the exploits of that person and swapping stories, but the person themselves is missing, probably off somewhere doing something much more interesting than reflecting on past glories.
Cummings’ quiz of hyper-specific Brass Eye trivia starts to feel a little embarrassing when it becomes clear that he’s the only one who knows the answers to any of them. ‘We don’t have many freeze-framers in tonight!’ he jokes, after another lengthy silence.
As much as I still care pretty deeply about Brass Eye, I hope I never reach that point.
