Review by Steve Bennett

John-Luke Roberts is clear about his intentions from the start – this is an hour of esoteric, whimsical comedy. ‘I can’t stress just how esoteric it will be,’ he asserts, saying his aim is to leave the audience ‘mildly disappointed’.

I think he got it bang on. For although there is much to admire in his elegant, inventive writing, it’s just a little too emotionally detached to make you love it. There are smart gags – but it feels as if they are being showcased behind glass.

And there’s a lot of them, too; with punchlines coming thick and fast. His most inspired idea was to create a non-specific insult for every member of the audience (and more besides), put-downs which are often cleverly witty and occasionally ‘spookily accurate’, and certainly a league apart from the typical comebacks implying your mother’s promiscuity. That didn’t, however, stop one appalling woman heckling ‘you’re not funny,’ very much inaccurately.

Plenty of ingenious devices are employed to sneak in more quips under a different guise – from sit-down, armchair-based storytelling to a filmed sktch and a troubling costume change… and, of course, that gruesome business we’re not supposed to be paying any attention to.

Some of the lines and mental images, too, are delightful. Anyone who describes starfish as ‘the asterisks of the sea’ can be forgiven a few convoluted groaners. In the end, it’s pretty much a draw between jokes brilliant and naff… and even the naff ones have a certain charm. You can see why he’s a writer-in-residence on Radio 4, given his rich use of language.

He knows this strengths, too, and plays up the supercilious, erudite image which does make him seem more unironically smug than he needs be. The Kate Bush skit is an attempt to prick that pomposity, but it comes a little too late.

So much impresses, it’s a shame that the show doesn’t quite gel, or the performance seem quite relaxed enough to allow us to enjoy that intelligent writing to its full potential.

On the other hand, I never saw a thing…

Review date: 12 Aug 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett