Graham Hey – Original Review
Note: This review is from 2007
Review by Steve Bennett
Graham Hey’s an old-fashioned showman with a relentless cavalcade of bam-bam-bam gags. The problem is that after a couple of strong openers, they quickly descend into the crushingly familiar.More than 15 years ago, he wrote a joke book – and the same gags are still in use today, even though the are now creaky veterans. He’s supplied gags to the Daily Star and is a veteran of the package holiday clubs in the Costas, so you can understand why he practises easy, common-denominator stuff.
But it’s woefully uninventive compared to the rest of the stand-up circuit, full of standard, and often-heard, audience banter, formulaic pull-back-and-reveals (‘…and that’s why they banned me from Ikea’) and such tired old pub lines like condoms coming in ‘small, medium or liar’.
The ceaseless battering breaks down any audience resistance, and he has got that old-school way of having utter faith in the most blandly generic material - but it’s basically the same old nonsense any half-decent working men’s club act could reel off.
This consummate, if shameless, entertainer is also a magician, with a repertoire that includes an impressive mind-reading trick. But you don’t need to be a mind-reader to see his punchlines coming.
Review date: 2 Nov 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
