Review by Steve Bennett

It’s a nice conceit for a sketch; the idea that India’s Strongest Man isn’t that strong after all.

Yet even setting it in 1982, offering another dimension of possible gags, doesn’t give Gurpal Gill enough to play with. Once a few obvious lines about drinking, smoking and shagging are dispensed with, he’s left struggling. So he makes the character a dancer for Madonna before abandoning the concept altogether with an aimless couple of video inserts about ten minutes in. But the idea still outstays its welcome.

Gill has similar problems with the stand-up that fills the rest of the hour; with too few jokes based on too little of substance.

He talks about himself, mainly, but doesn’t say much that’s personal. There are jokes about his moustache! Or about his height… which is strange because at 5ft 8in there’s absolutely nothing noteworthy about it at all, being a full one inch below the national average. He reads out a dumb review of a product left on the internet, which would probably make a mediocre RT at best… And can we all agree that saying ‘hashtag’ before a word does not a punchline make? Hashtag stopit.

There’s an odd glimpse of something a little more engaging, such as the image of his working-class dad carrying wodges of cash, but the whole hour smacks of a chatty open-spot who’s desperately overextended himself; someone who should be trying to polish 10 minutes slots instead plunging into an hour. He’s getting himself noticed – his Fringe marketing is eye-catching and prominent – but he doesn't deliver once he’s got your attention. And for this he quit his accountancy job? You can’t help thinking he should maybe have about three more years to get competent.

On the plus side, he does have a nice way with the audience, welcoming us warmly and bantering easily. Spotting a T-shirt with this year's date on, he wittily ad-libbed about it being 'from the future'. But those compere-like skills only goes so far. Poor Scott, from the front row, seemed to be given an awful lot to do and didn’t really want to. Others were deployed to answer a repeatedly phone on the stage in another section that didn’t fly.

Gill isn’t really India’s Strongest Man, that was always obvious. Sadly he’s a very long way from being India’s Strongest Comic, too.

Review date: 14 Aug 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at The Mash House