Stephen Merchant – Original Review
Note: This review is from 2008
Review by Steve Bennett
Though famous – and wealthy – for The Office and Extras, Stephen Merchant has quietly been honing a stand-up set of his own, making increasingly frequent appearances on the circuit, usually unannounced.He is an instinctively funny man, and genetics has given him the frame to match. His segments about being a freakish 6ft 7in are witty and charming, and brought to life with a skilful comic physicality.
He mines the problems of making love to a smaller woman for all they are worth, awkwardly re-enacting the dilemmas with the aid of the microphone stand in a deliberately overextended routine that wavers between testing the audiences’ patience and rewarding them for sticking with it.
More winning self-deprecation comes with sly references to his stinginess, although a routine about fatties is dangerously close to the generic – but saved with a lovely payoff about oversized Y-fronts.
Review date: 19 Jul 2008
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
