Michael McIntyre Live And Laughing

DVD review

On his DVD recorded at Bolton Albert Halls, Peter Kay is filmed taking a minicab to the gig. A few years, and several social classes away, Michael McIntyre is shown gliding into the Hammersmith Apollo in a Rolls-Royce Phantom. The message is clear: this is one prestige comic. Observational comedy is his forte. And it’s the genre that’s easiest to do badly, as countless acts who mistake reportage for gags can attest. But McIntyre has it nailed as he exposes the ridiculousness of such mundane everyday behaviour as eating a hotel breakfast, parking a car or getting on a plane. It’s difficult to identify things that we all do which no one else has spotted before, but McIntyre manages it (almost) every time. Few comics have got so much mileage out of the simple act of walking – both metaphorically and literally. The way we stroll about provides him with material, while he generates an animated energy by relentlessly striding back and forth across the stage, notching up several kilometres in every show. He’s a bit too slick, a bit too smug, for some; but the quality of the writing and the delivery overcomes this. He has an amazing natural rhythm, timing each pause perfectly to elicit the laugh; and just the way he says ‘muesli’ or suddenly ejaculates a certain word brings out a reflex laugh. And it’s not all a forensic dissection of universal behaviour that’s become so second nature no one stops o think about it, as he gets frustrated with his own stupidity too. Yes, he’s unashamedly mainstream, and perhaps too blatantly determined to hit the largest possible audience with each passing comment. But from the sheer number of chuckles of recognition he draws out, you have to concede that all the work he clearly puts into his set pays huge dividends.
Sample joke:'Sometimes when you're in a hotel you have a wake-up call. That's an awkward conversation, isn't it, "This is your wake up call.' What are you supposed to say? "I am awake!"’ (Yes, it is all in the delivery)

Extras: Just the one,his first Live At the Apollo appearance
Recorded at: Hammersmith Apollo, London	To buy:
Main show running time: 84 mins
Certificate: 15
Release date: November 17, 2008
RRP: £19.99