Review by Steve Bennett

Charlie Baker struggled to interest the sparsely populated comedy tent with tired, pedestrian material, but his disproportionate response to the heckler who dared point this out left a worst taste in mouth than the dodgiest festival falafel.

His dull shtick on being a fat bloke, odd stereotypes about him being ‘gay enough’ to eat quiche but man enough to have onion rings with it, and his repeated assertion – without any gags to back it up – that nothing in life is better than taking a shit with the Argos catalogue as reading material was largely met by listless silence.

Then one bloke piped up, out of frustration rather than hate: ‘What you should do in shut up’, and Baker turned. Getting nowhere with his bullying tone urging the dissenter to ‘stand up and say that’, Baker wandered into the crowd and dumped the best part of a pint of cider over the naysayer.

Latitude is so polite such unprofessional behaviour went unchallenged, but it was surely an utterly inappropriate response. Baker should have defeated him with wit, not assault.

It was, at best, a misguided attempt to inject some excitement into the moribund atmosphere – but then Baker also created that in the first place.

In his favour, he does have a very strong singing voice, able to emulate greats like Sinatra, though he only does so to change song lyrics to make them slightly ruder. And singing the jingle of the Bodyform ads has been used as a punchline replacement service since the campaign first appeared in a previous century.

Poor material and an unpleasant streak… not a winning combination.

Review date: 25 Jul 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett