Jason Manford at the Bloomsbury Theatre

Jason Manford at the Bloomsbury Theatre

16 October, 2009
by: Evolmike

Earning the mantle of 'That bloke off the telly' is neither the achievement nor the accolade it used to be. Take Jason Manford. He's off the telly. "Oh yeah? What show?" "8 out of 10 cats." "... [vacant silence] Oh." So I'll admit I arrived only half expecting real comedy, half expecting some of... that sort of thing. Most quick capsule reviews of Jason describe him as good clean agreeable fun. The kind of jokes your family will get. It's all beginning to sound ominously satsuma-shaped. But I give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he's not the glorified warm-up guy that I suspect he is.
 
He comes on and declares that he's going to do his own warm up act. Right, so... not helping the preconception, but it does reveal the first sign of his speciality - he really puts in the hours. Rolling out at about ten to eight, with large chunks of the audience yet to take their seats (which is a quite ingenious technique for engaging a crowd, interrogating the late comers into submission and owning the room before it has even assembled.) And with only a short break, he kept it going until nearly half ten. If nowt else you get proper value for t'money. Isn't it.
 
So, an A plus for quantity. How about quality? Meh. A good meh, but still a meh. Mainly observational and doing well in managing to sound clever but not too clever. The same visceral grit as Peter Kay but not as flagrantly silly. At times he balances on the edge of dark but never quite gets dark enough for my taste (except for a harrowing story about a dislocated hip socket and a testicle, but that wasn't funny so much as... mechanically perturbing.)
 
The best thing about his material is that it seems indistinguishable, almost inseparable from his banter, of which there is a lot. He threw most of his encore out to audience questions, and in between the fatuous warbles that you usually get from an unmediated audience; he did manage to get actual conversations going, and could always eventually segue into a relevant routine. And of course he did this all night, well into arse-hurting territory and with the pain barrier in sight. Pretty impressive. The crowd got so accustomed to this free for all of questions that one guy even yelled "What time is it?" towards the end. Funny thing is, amongst all this kerfuffle, that was the closest thing to a heckle all night. He commands a lot more respect than a Manc might expect from a midweek London mob. But no one's being alienated here. I'll give him that - he holds a crowd well, makes you feel safe. So, definitely comes highly recommended for weddings and functions, but if feeling safe isn't your cup of tea and you like your comedy dangerous, you might find it dragging on. But that's where booze comes in. Get drunk enough to shout something. Problem solved.

Jason Manford's DVD: Live at the Apollo will be released on 16th November.


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Evolmike