Review of the comedian's 2022 stand-up tour

Ed Gamble is a lovely boy who wants to be a bad boy – and that chasm is as close as anything to a theme in his new stand-up tour.

Time and again, he gets exasperated at how his polite middle-class demeanour thwarts the edgy image he wants. And it’s that same personality that makes his frustration and anger all the more comically ineffective.

The comic has spoken before of how he can’t be accepted into the world of heavy metal because of his ‘Coldplay face’, however much he loves thrash music. It’s a theme he returns to and expands upon in Electric, fuelled by anecdotes about gigging at the hardcore Download Festival or joining the most testosterone-heavy iron-pumping gym in his neighbourhood. His tattoos do nothing to harden his image: this is one fish who’s always out of water.

Similarly, any ambitions he might once have held about being a controversial, hard-hitting comic are dealt a blow when his jokes are deemed suitable for tiny children. The indignity of it all!

Petty anger runs through this lively show, feeling he’s been wronged by anything from the all-powerful ten-pin bowling cartel to the suppliers of penis-shaped straws. He got involved with the latter when he decided to have a joint hen and stag do with his future wife – just the two of them – because of the lockdown.

That might have been an obviously stupid idea – and Gamble’s retelling of it proves as much in minute detail – but you can’t question his commitment. That same quality also defines his comedy, especially evident in the splendid extended signature routine that closes the show.

Taking the audience through the various items of a cheap hotel buffet breakfast could be the premise for the hackiest observational routine, born of a lazy road comic desperately scanning his environment for inspiration.

But Gamble shows masterful comedy skills in the way he takes each element apart. The descriptions are vivid and accurate – but crucially unique, evoking hilariously off-the-wall, but strangely credible, backstories for how each everyday item arrived under its shiny chafing dish.

He has a sparkling way with words in this blend of fantasy and exaggerated real-life. And, of course, the foodie theme will chime with those who know him as co-host of the Off Menu podcast (one of just so many he fronts) and Great British Menu judge.

Envelope-pushing it might not be, despite that part of him that once dreamt of being a latter-day Bill Hicks. But it’s a powerhouse end to a show defined by vibrant, unforced performance and sparkling comic hyperbole ridiculing both everyday experiences and his own foibles. Electric, you might even call it.

• Ed Gamble is on tour with Electric until April 23. Tour dates.

Review date: 13 Feb 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Hackney Empire