Nicholas Cooke

Comedy De Luxe Night 4

The sold-out house for the exquisitely sardonic Simon Evans at week four of Comedy De Luxe witnessed a competent, if inconsistent, line-up of newer acts for their first-half appetizers.

First up was David Hannant, who’d seen a sign advertising ‘baby massage’, which set off his mind as to what this might be. You might have some ideas yourself, and many of them could well be the same as what Hannant came up with in this textbook-exercise way of writing observational stand-up. The final pay-off evoked a funny image, and he’s affable enough, but the writing here isn’t much of a stretch. Nevertheless, his routine about explicit texting was stronger, and struck a chord – especially in some embarrassed quarters of the audience – by exposing the inherent ridiculousness of the practice. It’s a simple idea, but nicely drawn out, aside from the redundant introduction of a ‘what would cavemen think...’ line

Cheeky chappy Jimmy Bird has the patter, but his gags are decidedly hit and miss. There are nicely self-effacing fantasies about being a Brighton beach lifeguard or getting carried away on a paintballing trip, but when the setting shifts to urban Brixton, the joke is a lot more obvious. And some segments, about his family’s Christmas gifts or his sausage dog, are convoluted for little reward. He’s got a an unnaturally deliberate pacing, which seems a bit forced, and, like Hannant before him, his personality doesn’t shine through enough to make the reasonable material stand out.

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