DVD review by Steve Bennett

There can’t be anybody left in Britain who needs an introduction to Michael McIntyre. His BBC One show pulled in more than five million viewers a week, and his ‘fat Chinese man’s’ face suddenly seems to be everywhere.

His success has been heralded as a revival for safe, unchallenging comedy that everyone can relate to – although, as fellow arena-fillers Lee Evans and Peter Kay will attest, that never really went away. But there’s no denying McIntyre is the comic du jour – at least for the sort of middle-class people who say things like ‘du jour’.

There’s nothing here that you can’t relate to, which is his strength and his weakness, with several topics, from flying with Ryanair to nakedness in gym changing rooms so common that he can’t find much that other observational comics haven’t seen before him.

Yet he frequently finds new angles in topics you might think have been done to death – going clothes shopping with the wife, for example – as well as seeing the ludicrous in everyday rituals that everyone else has missed, such as sampling wine at a restaurant, or the collection of spices gathering dust in every kitchen’s cabinet. These are excellent set pieces, sharply observed and skillfully extended into the realm of the ridiculous.

Yes, it’s as mainstream as a Disney animation – and no less cartoonish, as McIntyre is all grand gestures, booming emphasis and shrill, campish reaction. The poor camera operators at Wembley Arena pan left and right and back again more often than at Wimbledon, as he purposefully strides the width of the stage, injecting even the most mundane observation with a pantomime drama.

Such over-the-top theatricals can be draining, but it rather depends how funny it is; in some of the weaker segments it feels like overkill, but at his finest, the energy sweeps you along.

McIntyre’s a largely family-friendly performer – to the extent that it jars when he talks of getting his birthday blowjob – and this is probably going to be the one stand-up DVD the whole family might agree to watch together over Christmas.

For that reason, McIntyre is probably never going to be fashionable among the comedy fraternity, but there are routines – and some very skillful jokes – in this show that many a stand-up would envy.

And the DVD also boasts an ‘extra’ worth having: 45 minutes of McIntyre’s stand-up routines from BBC One’s Comedy Roadshow.

Running time: 83 mins
Extras: Comedy roadshow (46mins). Stand-up routines from that show
Released by: Universal Pictures, November 16
Price: £21.99. Click here to buy from Amazon at £9.98.

Published: 1 Dec 2009