Noel Britten – Original Review
Note: This review is from 2007
Review by Steve Bennett
Noel Britten is an old-fashioned prop comic whose shtick feels as phoney as it does dated, despite the presence of a couple of stupidly silly pranks in the otherwise lacklustre set.His routine is built around such joke-shop tat as fake skin, which he peels off to the audience’s mock disgust, outsized five-pound notes and a magician’s rope that remains rigid despite no obvious means of support, until it suffers droops, phallic-like.
It’s all meant to be daft, Knockabout stuff, but Britten plays down the performance, leaving it with very little impact. He chuckles to himself as he recites the same jokes he’s trotted out a hundred times before, but it feels fake – and it certainly isn’t infectious. Chortle saw him at Jongleurs, playing to a generally generous audience, but only a handful of punters bought into Britten’s supposed silliness, their laughter standing out among a sea of indifference.
Yet there are hints this act could be up to the standards you’d expect of a comic who regularly plays all the big clubs. There’s an inventive bit of mischief with some torn paper, for example, that many will want to emulate, and a couple of nice lines that rise about the sluggishness of the rest.
But it doesn’t gel at all, thanks to a delivery that seems more suited to a low-rent cruise liner than a ribald comedy club. Britten is no Tommy Cooper, that’s for sure.
Review date: 2 Jul 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
