Emma McAlpine reviews the latest tour from funny misanthrope and Channel 4's Stand Up For The Week host Jon Richardson.
Tonight’s gig is a big one for Jon Richardson. It’s his debut DVD recording at the Apollo Shaftesbury and according to his Twitter feed before the show, he is “absolutely shitting himself”. Not that you’d have guessed. Ever the professional, his natural stage presence and conversational approach has the audience eating out of his hand from the off, as he sets the tone with customary cynicism: “If anyone here tonight is in love, you should know that it won’t last.”
A two-hour accumulation of his ‘greatest hits so far’, this latest tour sees Richardson discuss such topics as turning 30, falling out of love with Masterchef, the accessibility of porn and the dubiousness of fairy tales. Yet, while his more observational material isn’t short of laughs, it is his own OCD-like neuroses which supply the highlights in the show. We’ve all complained about housemates’ annoying habits before but Richardson’s rage over something as trivial as finding a cereal box in the bin or a steak knife in the wrong drawer, makes for some hysterical ranting. He is well aware of his own shortcomings too; as he points out, it’s his own fault that he really cares about this stuff but he can’t help it. Even watching a toddler eating a banana is enough to give him nightmarish visions of a house overflowing with dribbly banana goo.
In the hands of anyone else, this could all sound quite miserable, but Richardson’s amiable demeanour – with his Krusty the Clown laugh and 1,000 watt grin – helps to keep the mood light. He has a nice turn of phrase too. He tells us he’d rather not open his mind to spirituality but “leave it on the latch”, and his disgust over a man eating “the lid of an apple” on a train gets exponentially funnier as it goes on. There are a few niggles: a bit about mispronouncing ‘an onion’ as ‘nunion’ isn’t really material worthy and his ‘annoyed voice’ that he tends to slip into starts to irritate after a while. But these are small misgivings – this is a solid show with a consistent laugh rate throughout.
Leaving the stage to a storming applause, he returns for an encore, demonstrating an amusing self-awareness of his particular brand of comedy. “Some people will have hated that”, he concedes. “Most likely men, who their girlfriends dragged along and think I’m just moaning.” Judging by the crowd reaction (and there are plenty of men present), he’s doing himself a disservice. After all, who needs jokes, when you’re in the company of such an amusing sourpuss?
Jon Richardson: Funny Magnet will be available to buy on DVD from November 19th. Click on the link to pre-order.
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