Review by Steve Bennett

Laurence Clark has had more dealings with the NHS than most of us; he and his wife both have cerebral palsy – and they’ve just given birth to their second child.

But the inspiration for his, typically political hour is not his first-hand experiences of the health service (for which, try Dr Phil Hammond’s show) – but the quite remarkable phenomenon of its very existence. We might moan about it, but as Clark points out in an early PowerPoint slide, the number of complaints about NHS treatment in the UK is on a par with the number of people who die in the States because they don’t have health insurance.

As President Obama’s recent attempts to reform heathcare, even in a relatively minor way, have shown, Americans are suspicious of the very idea of a ‘socialised’ service. They link it to socialism and thus to communism, and, erm, Mussolini – as one particularly misinformed woman told Clark as he took to the streets of the States for a vox pop.

The ignorance of the American far-right is an almost endless source of laughs; and Clark unearths a few good examples here. But more worrying than those who’ve got the wrong idea, though, are those who DO understand what the NHS is, and still don’t like it.

The first half of Health Hazard is funny and full of attitude – helped by some mocking of Duncan from Blue and his idiotic, trying-too-hard-to-be-inclusive comments – but it loses focus in the second. The quotes Clark gets for insurance given his condition are eye-watering, but his attempts to get Americans in the street to buy into a British style NHS are unenlightening. To show some people refusing flyers shows only that people don’t want unsolicited flyers – as if there’s not enough evidence of that in Edinburgh at the moment.

And it shows how common hidden filming is these days that Clark encountered another comedian doing another stunt, while he was doing his. Still, a separate encounter with a street evangelist is amusing.

As ever, Clark has points to make, and does so with likeability and charm, rather than polemic. The show could be deeper, but it’s entertaining.

Review date: 21 Aug 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett