Review by Steve Bennett at the Leicester Square Theatre

‘Try to explain this!’  is the challenge Tony Law sets. He’s amused by the idea of fans trying to persuade unsuspecting friends to come and see his bold displays of absurdity. Is is stand-up? Theatre? Art? Or none of the above.

Well, its a man in a cape, oversized Mickey Mouse gloves, Abba-esque headband and Hulk Hogan moustache seeming to do just whatever comes into his head. There are prepared ‘bits’, of course, but this is a display of living in the moment, blurting out what’s in his mind as he performs them. #nofilter.

That means we get a running commentary on how weird he’s being, how ill-prepared, or whether he’s pushing things too far, in the hope commitment and repetition will turn into funny, by some peculiar alchemy. It usually does. He sometimes cowers under his cape to give voice to his inner monologue, akin to the technique fellow force-of-nature Terry Alderton effects in his stand-up. And you might spot bits of Harry Hill’s delivery, returned to fractured ideas. But using other comedians as a frame of reference is otherwise a futile exercise.

As well as being hard to categorise, he makes things difficult for himself in a more direct way, too, juggling cumbersome accoutrements to try to tell his shaggy-dog stories, whether of an ill-fated racehorse or the psychological impact of finding a disembodied human head in the woods. These are peppered with sparks of shorter ideas, some of which are triggered by random cue cards, meaningless even to him, posted about the stage.

The show is a jalopy with a lunatic at the wheel, careening about, forever close to collapse or crash. A wild ride, making the most of the spontaneous unrepeatability of live comedy. Law’s a foo in the finest tradition, never really considering the consequences of his action.

It might all seem entirely surreal, but following the interval – unnecessary, save for the venue’s need for beer sales to offset operating costs – Law drops in some autobiographical fragments about his impractical car, or the death of his three sausage dogs. Needless to say, this is far from your boilerplate stand-up shtick, as he take an obtuse approach to finagling his personal woes into his madness. 

That he ends this short half with a shortened reprise of his ‘elephant’ gag from his Chortle award-winning 2012 show is a bit of an anticlimax, given the air of spontaneity, real or faked, that propels the insanity. Although it is a joyous bit of material and typically unique from a comic who is a Law unto himself.

• Tony Law: Frillemorphesis continues on tour in Cambridge on Tuesday. Dates.

Review date: 7 Feb 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett