PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Comedy Box at the Hen & Chicken, Bristol (Fri 11-Sat 12 Nov)

COMEDY “Ladies and Gs, you’ve been an absolute smashfest, you really have,” enthuses John Robins at the end of a set that has itself earned that unusual epithet. The audience at the Hen & Chicken has indeed been typically patient and lovely, smiling its way through a couple of lacklustre acts on its way to an excellent main event.

Young compere Fin Taylor is all bouncy, middle-class and terribly polite, but fails to riff convincingly on audience interjection. James Corden sound-a-like Russ Powell’s best joke is to categorically reject comparisons between himself and James Corden; but sadly his laboured puns, trite observations and surplus of over-familiar stand-up techniques fail to raise many more laughs than his famous doppelganger’s lamentable sketch show. An unexpected treat is delivered just before half-time in the form of Rosie Wilby, a diminutive middle-aged lesbian with a cut-glass accent who delivers her mix of daft surrealism, social commentary and filth with the enthusiasm of an eccentric English teacher.

But it’s the headliner that really impresses. Bristol boy Robins tells a host of nicely detailed stories from his own life: his cub scout days, when more relaxed H&S laws meant he could be blindfolded, thrown in the back of a van and dumped in a forest to find his own way back without anyone batting an eyelid; and a gross-out tale of his first experience of anal sex. The subject matter isn’t groundbreaking, but Robins’ secret weapon is his deliciously bizarre vocabulary: a mix of incongruous text speak and twitterisms (‘WTF?!’, ‘whatevs’, ‘obvsatron’), outdated street slang (he often reminds us what a ‘super-cool-dude’ he is) and arcane cursing (‘Christmas day!’ ‘Crivens!’) that elicits near-constant giggling from the crowd. It’s all delivered with a manic, bewildered grin and a supreme confidence that suggests his use of this bizarre lexicon is the most natural thing in the world. A super-cool smashfest indeed. (Tom Hackett)

Copyright Tom Hackett 2011