Doug Stanhope at Leicester Square Theatre

Doug Stanhope at Leicester Square Theatre

04 August, 2011
by: Sjk

Sarah Kendell witnesses the booze-fuelled tornado of genius that is Doug Stanhope live.

When my fellow contributor Mike caught Doug Stanhope at his Leicester Square Theatre run last year, it was as a previous devotee, a category I gather most of the audience for tonight’s gig also fall into. Surrounding me as we file into the Main House’s always enjoyable plush cushioned seats are a majority of men in their twenties and thirties, scruffily dressed and carting armfuls of pints, no doubt over the moon to see their comedic idol.

My companion for the evening and I don’t exactly fall into the hard-drinkin’, red-blooded male category (although I am in possession of a particularly toxic hangover, so I guess that’s one out of two), but we needn’t have worried about gender discounting us from the outrageous fun of a Stanhope show. The comedian’s caustic wit, fierce intelligence and unmatchable talent for angry ranting render every subject an occasion for tearful hilarity, from the mundane to the obscene.

It’s the latter, though, that’s obviously and famously the comedian’s specialty – in 2008, he set up a charitable fund to pay for Bristol Palin’s abortion, and was booed offstage at a festival in Ireland for claiming the local women were “too ugly to rape”. The breadth of X-rated subjects he covers in tonight’s performance are mostly too filthy to mention in detail – there’s a lot of in-depth description of his bowel movements, and a brilliantly insane closing bit on the worst-hit victims of the economic crisis: prostitutes.

Strangely, though there’s certainly a lot of potential to offend, I don’t find myself anything other than utterly entertained by any of it, which surely must be what allows Stanhope to sell a 20-plus date run almost to capacity year after year. Something in his manner, the elaborate construction of his builds and punchlines, and the way he raucously sells himself on stage allows him to get away with saying things that no other comedian, certainly no English comedian, would get within a mile of. As he himself says at the beginning of his set, if you say something with conviction, you can get almost anyone to buy into it.

That conviction is helped along by booze, and a lot of it, courtesy of the friendly theatre bar maid who supplies mid-set Jagerbombs that Stanhope says have become “like a pacifier to me now”. Watching the comedian slowly inebriate himself is a separate, fascinating study in itself, as he starts off shaky and husky-voiced and builds to a confident, outlandish conclusion, much like a cocktail party when you’re three drinks in and the banter is flowing perfectly.

Amongst Stanhope’s many sardonic observations of the night is one on “just how fucking lazy songwriters are”, having to fill only three minutes with seemingly endless repetitions of a chorus compared to his own hour of varying, original material night after night. It’s appropriate considering how much the performance of a truly seasoned professional like Stanhope makes you realise the breadth of talent, intuition and timing needed to pull off a good comedic performance. Say what you will about his unconventional subject matter, but there is definitely method in the madness.

Doug Stanhope is at Leicester Square Theatre until September 3rd.

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