Review by Steve Bennett

As the promoter of a string of clubs across the Midlands, Spiky’s bread and butter is as a compere of his own nights, where he’s friendly enough and competent enough to get the audience hushed and pointing roughly in the right direction.

When it comes to a set, however, the shortcomings of his content are more exposed; with stories that might have been moderately amusing at the time, but don’t seem especially worth of repetition to a room full of paying strangers.

He tells us how he squeezed his girlfriend’s ass in a queue – only to discover it wasn’t her! He spotted a police car with a defective rear light – oh how the tables have turned! Those signs in the toilet counting down the minutes to the next cleaning – what’s that all about, eh?

Rhod Gilbert twisted the last observation into his magnificent, barnstorming rant that almost won him the if.comedy award, so it’s questionable why Spiky uses his much less considered version, which is just a relatively straightforward wry comment almost anyone might have made.

That undercooking of material is endemic in his set, which rarely takes ideas beyond their immediate thought. Jokes take work, which it doesn’t feel like he’s put in – and no wonder, given that he’s got all those gigs to run. It’s hard to be both a good promoter and a good comic – and Spiky proves no exception.

Review date: 19 Feb 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett