Review by Steve Bennett

Quite audaciously – or arrogantly – Lee Kern has produced his first hour-long Fringe show just a few short months into his stand-up career. It seems like a recipe for disaster.

Indeed, he falls into many of the same traps many a newcomer does: hiding behind an unemotive deadpan for fear of exposing his vulnerabilities and going for the usual bingo-card of rookie bad-taste topics. Masturbation, paedophilia, coprophilia, prison rape and Joseph Fritzl all feature in his set list.

Often, too, the jokes are similar to those already in the comedy ether; though in the way he very slowly and deliberately unwraps them, Stewart Lee-style, you would think he had come up with something hugely original – when, really, it’s just sluggish, unnecessary exposition, often repeating of the same idea just in a different form of words.

One of his main topics is racism – he’s against it – and love – he’s for it. The first strand largely comprises him being sarcastic about statements on the BNP and similar websites, which can be likened to shooting fish in a barrel with a rocket-propelled grenade, given that it doesn’t take great intellect to argue against ignorance.

While in many ways he resembles the scores of stand-up newbies who think a sneer is all you need, Kern nonetheless have a distinct appeal of his own. The precise, elaborate arrays of adjectives he can construct, again like Lee does, have a impressive elegance, while his stage presence is compelling, marred only by his perpetual rubbing of his nose, possible as a release of nervous energy.

The set ends with a long, virtually joke-free monologue about a relationship break-up, which again demonstrates how he can hold the audience in the palm of his hand. But you’d be forgiven if you’d rather have the gags than the gravitas.

Kern certainly has a certain something that sets him aside from his contemporaries, but this still seems like a show too soon. He’s being adopted by various industry types who are pushing him as the next big thing, an idea he understandably seems to be going along with. Indeed, next year’s show could be a scorcher. But until then he needs to ignore the hype and keep gigging, learn what topics and approaches are familiar and avoid them, while exaggerating the distinctive elements that he is already displaying.

Kern has is stacks of potential for the future, but it’s not always being realised in the present.

Review date: 7 Aug 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett