Gig review by Steve Bennett at Leicester Comedy Festival

Simon Lilley describes himself as an award-winning comedian. By which, it transpires, it means that readers of the Daily Telegraph voted his joke ‘I thought ex-pats were people who used to be called Pat’ the worst of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

That this is actually the second best joke in his shabby show – which he then acts out three times to labour the point – pretty much says all you need to know.

Essentially Lilley has a bee in his bonnet about the way capitalism works. In fact so disillusioned is he with the system he apparently can’t be bothered to write any jokes about it, and just gripes semi-coherently instead. Still, the show is value for money: it lasts about 50 minutes, but it feels like interminable hours.

A large chunk of this is set around a version of Monopoly, which he takes great trouble to set out, handing out odd playing pieces around the room and throwing the giant die. There’s a lot of business involved but not a lot of jokes at the end of it, as every turn is a Chance card in which the player is screwed by The Man.

That’s greed allegedly covered. God, the first of his triumvirate, barely gets a look-in. Lilley does spend a few minutes telling us the CV of David Icke, how he went from goalkeeper to commentator to messianic harbinger of shapeshifting-lizard doom. No jokes mind, just the facts… He mentions the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope, too, though for very little reason. There’s almost a joke envisaging the Pontiff in his former job as a nightclub bouncer that Lilley struggles to vocalise – but gags are so thin on the ground we must grasp at straws and at least note the attempt at a punchline.

Finally, the football section is covered by repeating some terrace chants, and the tedious airing of old rivalries. Tribalistic ‘banter’ about other teams being shit is enemy of free-thinking and wit, as Lilley comprehensively proves. He also teases John Terry for shopping in Poundland as the Daily Star once reported, because… well, I’m still not sure why, or what the joke is beyond the original story.

Lilley seems to have noble ambitious to be a politically-minded comic with something to say. But quite what that is remains unclear, and the way he says it ensures no one will want to listen.

Review date: 10 Feb 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Leicester The Looking Glass