Tim Key

The verses, written on the back of laminated pornographic playing cards (some home-made) are as off-kilter as ever; sometimes as short as one-line, other times drip-feeding information so that a new punchline emerges with each pregnant pause. His way with words is uniquely precise and evocative, which spills over into the quirkily descriptive stand-up sections, too.

Where Key has previously played up the distance between himself and his audience, he is more playful with them this time, clambering through the rows after a great opening visual gag; getting a nice bit of banter going regarding a date in Pizza Express, and getting them to play a slow-motion version of that improv game where each player provides one word at a time, to great effect.

His own, considered, calculated anecdotes are again rich with slightly absurd ideas, anchored if not quite in reality, in Key’s almost dream-like version of reality. We get the most vivid glimpse into this when he finally releases the tension around the bath and plunges himself into it, like a junior-management version of sultry cabaret act David O’Mer, and his underwater world is projected onto the big screen.

Interestingly, he has one story that’s based on the identical idea used in the core routine of Richard Herring’s show this year – proof positive for the idea of synchronicity and coincidence; even if Key’s very shtick is that he’s slightly out-of-sync with everyone else.

That, and a couple of fleeting moments of self-indulgence aside, Masterslut is an original, ambitious, odd, mischievous and inventively funny to spend an hour. Better, even, than having a bath.