Review by Bruce Dessau

Comedians have two options at festivals when it comes to choosing material: either take the opportunity to road-test new gags in front of a big crowd or use proven patter. Holly Walsh largely went for the latter option at Latitude.

She rolled out her routine about living in run-down Peckham which she did the first time I ever saw her, way back when we had a credible Labour government – and these days Peckham is becoming positively posh. It’s still a good routine, though, and the crowd certainly liked it, so Walsh's choice clearly paid off.

It is no surprise that Walsh is making a name for herself on TV. She is clever enough to appeal to the sophisticated comedy nerds but also skilled enough to make the passing punter laugh, with stories about Wetherspoons pubs laminating everything so it is easier to wipe up the vomit, being mugged by an eight-year-old or – something that is rapidly becoming a decidedly over-popular topic – self-service supermarket checkouts.

Hopefully she is banking up new material for a proper show, but for this short daytime slot her old well-polished vignettes did the trick. She has a particularly good line in spotting the oddities of languages – why indeed do we say ‘Excuse my French’ whenever we swear? It was a good indication of Walsh’s skill that I remembered her extended anecdote about being flashed at almost verbatim and yet it still made me titter on another hearing.

Review date: 25 Jul 2010
Reviewed by: Bruce Dessau