Micky Flanagan: The Out Out Tour

DVD review by Steve Bennett

No one can deny Micky Flanagan has had a spectacular couple of years, with his easy brand of charming cockney Herbertry accruing fans at an astonishing pace. Already routines such as ‘out, out’ and asking for ketchup in a restaurant seem to have achieved near-classic status, lodging in the memory of anyone who hears them.

Such has been the speed of his ascent that even though he already seems pretty well-known, this is his first live DVD. So of course, it contains those career-defining gags as well as the rest of his best material to date. It’s what the audience – a near-home crowd in ‘Sarfend’, Essex – have come to hear.

‘Where did you two meet?’ he asks a couple in the crowd. ‘Out…’ comes the cheeky reply – and after acknowledging the reference with the usual twinkle in his eye, he drops into the routine in question. No doubt he had to shuffle the running order in his head to accommodate this, but Flanagan doesn’t miss a beat.

It adds to the impression of this being a particularly entertaining matet grandstanding his well-honed stories in some East End boozer. He even leaves in a mistake he’d intended to fix in the retake, as the banter with a mischievous audience shows just how contagiously relaxed his manner is.

Flanagan certainly plays up his London roots – and his East End vowels alone make everything at least 15 per cent more cheeky – but he is typically playful as he talks about the stereotype of double-busy geezers who like taking a walk ‘abhart’ on their patch. But how many Cockneys could drop a reference to 19th Century Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kirkegaard and make it seem entirely unforced? It’s not a gag about the juxtaposition, just something he happens to have read.

Social mobility means he’s risen from a school where driving a van was an ambition too far into middle-class comfort, a continuing theme that gives his anecdotes a purpose, as well as striking cords across the class spectrum. On one level he’s a charismatic, roguish Jack-the-lad – but he’s well aware of the fact, and keen not too indulge the worst elements of that image.

He’s impish, but doesn’t want too cause offence – the segment about using ‘cunt’ as a term of endearment pretty much mirrors all that makes his approach so successful, using his charisma to make the rough-edged seem charming. It’s a winning way that lets him get away with smut, and makes even comic staples as drunk women on their nights out and youth culture seem fresh.

It takes a undoubted skill to turn watching a kettle boil into a stand-up routine, but that’s precisely what Flanagan does in a DVD that is sure to cement his reputation as an observational comic from the top drawer.