Review of Dave's new show set at a cult comedy night

Surely every stand-up has, at one time or another, sat in a comedy club green room and thought: ‘This would make a great TV series.’

However many have pitched the idea to broadcast executives, Rupert Majendie got it made, basing the much-publicised Live At The Moth Club on the oddly-named Knock2Bag nights he promotes at the titular venue in Hackney, East London.

It surely helped that he was able to put together an ensemble of some of the most-in demand cult comedy talent going, with guests drawn from the cutting edge of the live circuit joining regulars such as Seb Cardinal, Dustin Demri-Burns, Jamie Demetriou, Natasia Demetriou, Ellie White, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Mark Heap. Righty acclaimed sketch duo Alexander Owen and Ben Ashenden, aka The Pin, wrote it, too.

But all that firepower only makes it even more disappointing that the result is something of a mess. There are funny moments, especially from the comics performing their actual sets, but you have to wade through a lot of limp backstage sketches to get to them.  The fictional scenes are underplayed, underpowered and self-indulgent, while the portrayal of a down-at-heel club sucks the sense of occasion out of the live performances.

Of course everyone’s inept: Barman Denzel (Smith-Bynoe) can never remember anyone’s table-service order and techie Freddie (Freddie Meredith) doesn’t understand comedy beyond his specialist knowledge.  Most useless of the lot are the PR duo of Zebedee and Cress (Natasia Demetriou and Ellie White) that this small venue can somehow afford, who have odd ideas they insist on acting out. Same could be said of Live At The Moth Club.

Having Jon Pointing be the first on-stage act is a peculiar choice too, as you have to be in on the joke that he’s a deliberately bad stand-up with his empty ‘this government, am I right?’ polemic. But the shtick, undermining the art the show wants to celebrate, would put off any casual viewers taking him at face value. But then the whole programme feels insidery in the quite the wrong way.

It sits awkwardly between being a genuine showcase for live acts and an uneven collection of character pieces, even before the bizarre big-budget final Cardinal Burns sketch that abandons the Moth Club completely.

Occasionally it works, such as the running gag that drives the first episode. Phil Wang has an exclusive deal with a new streaming service launched by Dulux – not exclusively paint-based content, he insists – which means his usual set cannot be filmed. It’s a well-handled premise, with a strong payoff, that plays to Wang’s strengths, on the back foot but coping the best he can. Meanwhile, Sam Campbell’s off-the-wall stand-up is as great as you might expect from an Edinburgh Comedy Award winner, and Jamie Demetriou has great fun as an off-his-tits City Boy.

But as a whole, the niche show requires a patience and commitment from the audience that is too infrequently rewarded. Going to the actual club would be an infinitely better experience, not that this serves as a great advertisement for doing that.

• Live at The Moth Club starts on Dave at 10pm tonight.

Review date: 1 Dec 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett