Does Seinfeld's 02 gig live up to the hype? Emma McAlpine reviews the sitcom's star's first UK performance in 12 years.
“What’s the deal with airline food?”
It's easy to forget this observational cliché, now so often mocked by comedians as being one of the most hackneyed phrases in the genre, originated from a Jerry Seinfeld routine on air travel. Yet while the subject matter may have been copied to the point of ridicule, the formula of connecting with the audience on the minutiae of everyday life is still hugely popular.
Tonight at the packed O2, that phrase would not have seemed out of place. “What’s going on with the weather here?” and “What is it about energy drinks?” are two opening gambits in Seinfeld's routines, that don’t exactly inspire confidence in the strength of the material that’s to follow. Indeed, there's a lot of famailiar ground here. Bridezillas, Facebook and Starbucks all get an honourable mention and a segment about the time it takes his wife to get ready is similar to one Stewart Lee once parodied in his routine on the laziness of observational comics.
And yet, at his best – he is able to give even the most mundane of topics a new shine, from people treating coffee shops like apartments to expensive restaurants with bills that look like books. He fares even better on more imaginative subjects like the ‘trashification’ process that goes on in our homes, where everything we buy eventually gets trashed or stored in the garage: “eBay is just people mailing their garbage back and forth”, he concludes.
For me, the real highlights of the show come from his physical clowning and comical imagery. When questioning why we always see video footage of terrorists training on monkey bars, he takes the idea of a war fought in a children’s playground and paints a ludicrously funny picture of the scene, imagining soldiers advancing on plastic horses with giant springs underneath and air support from the swings. A routine about our dependence on mobile phones culminates in a hilarious analogy to someone dropping down dead, while his imitation of the way people walk down the street holding coffee like they’ve won an award is priceless.
There’s no doubt that Seinfeld is a very talented observational comic. He's charismatic, his timing and delivery are pitch perfect and he manages to sidestep the “How annoying is it when...?!” ranting that you often find in the genre. Yet somehow, the gig still felt like an anti-climax. Perhaps it was the hype that formed around the show itself: his first show here in 12 years with 18,000 plus tickets sold at £100 a pop is going to give you certain expectations. But even if I had stumbled across his secret set in the Comedy Store the previous evening, I don’t think I’d have been blown away. Stand-up is at its best when its raw and inventive and while there have been flashes of brilliance in Seinfeld's show tonight, too much of the material feels past its sell-by date.
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