by Steve Bennett

Seann Walsh has an old head on his young shoulders; complaining that everything in life is too much effort, and how he can’t understand the dubstep music of the modern kids... not like in his day when there were songs you could sing along to, like Limp Bizkit.

The best of his Latitude set mixes that world-beaten attitude to describing the perpetual mild despair of his life, living in a miserable sunlight-deprived basement. Add to that his inherent laziness, which makes a fish finger dinner seem like a big deal, and you have a man who can barely be bothered by life.

There’s also material from his last touring show about the ‘fuck it!’ attitude that lies behind all bad decision-making – not least when it comes to drinking that serves as an escape from that downbeat existence. Some of this is a straightforward description of a Jagerbomb-fuelled night on the lash, resonating with his fellow drunks, but not really offering much illumination on the way we behave.

Like all observational comedy, the joy is when he exposes, in perfect detail, a universal human foible that had perviously escaped us all, such as spotting yourself on CCTV camera, or using your phone to record video, and he lands several of these.

Yet he can also overplay his hand. For example, the fear of seeing a football come in his direction as he walks in the park becomes a major slow-mo set piece but isn’t actually funny – even though the initial observation was. It’s not the only time he tries to make an epic out of the mundane, which more often than not ends up diluting the impact of the initial comment rather than enhancing it. Aptly enough, given his lethargic stage persona, the more he appears to make an effort, the lesser the rewards.

Review date: 22 Jul 2013
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Latitude