With Amy Gledhill providing the perfect lead-in

Ed Gamble got a lovely lead-in to his Friday night headline set at Latitude, courtesy of the bubbly, confessional set by Amy Gledhill - embracing silliness to the extent of hiding a squeaky toy in her bra to give her boobs sound effects. Her glee at being on stage was palpable, given she used to work this festival as a litter-picker. But with her joyous performance, she proved the stage is where she deserves to be.

As a nice middle-class boy, Latitude is where Gamble belongs too, even though his love of heavy metal means he’d rather be at Download. The contrast between his bad-boy ambitions and mild-mannered reality has long been a foundation of his stand-up, and he kicked off his set with a story of being a fish out of water when he did gig at Download – and had the crowd literally baying for his blood. 

His entire shtick is that things don’t go great for him, which is ironic given how well his career is going –  even if he might never be as edgy as he’d like. But he has a deep well of happenstance and poor decisions to draw upon.

The universe dealt him a poor hand when his wedding was called off three times because of Covid – but he’s only got himself to blame for throwing his wife a lockdown hen do when he was the only guest, an excellent story of humiliation, and for honeymooning in Vegas, his idea of Hell. As if to cement his low status, Gamble even managed to be heckled by a 12-year-old child - although he had an amusingly inappropriate comeback. 

Some of his more general themes are not uncommon topics for stand-up - the spark going out of marriages, taking a cat as a child substitute – but he always has a stylish way of putting things and acute attention to detail. There are some great analogies and descriptions in his set, wonderfully describing the situations he finds himself in.

A bizarre neighbourhood WhatsApp thread is thus amplified into an epic tale. It might not entirely bear up to the significance Gamble gives it, after revealing that it unlocked his inner gossip-hungry side. But in his world, everything takes on an exaggerated magnitude, and usually that means his own ignominy.

Review date: 22 Jul 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Latitude