Gig review by Steve Bennett at the Soho Theatre, London

There’s something quite unsatisfying about Nick Thune’s low-wattage storytelling. Anecdotes that straggle rather than crescendo are told in a nonchalant deadpan that often seems to consider laughs more an inconvenience than an objective. It’s the epitome of ironic detachment, consciously stylish but ultimately underwhelming.

He is something of a big deal in the States. At least a couple of yarns here require someone recognising him as a turning point, and he drops in mentions of his TV appearances and  Netflix special.

However what he offered in his UK debut at the Soho Theatre is very different from that enjoyably offbeat Folk Hero show. Gone are the aphorisms and one-liners accompanied by a gently-strummed guitar. In come  long-form – and frankly long-winded – stories in which emotions are subdued.

He likes being in that state, given that the show is bookended by stories of getting stoned, first legally in modern-day America, later contrasted with the obligatory story about the pot tourism to Amsterdam. Despite being 36 years old, Thune is the manner of man who loves going out and gets high – and when his selfish actions cause a crisis for his pregnant wife, he feels hard done-by because she got angry.

Comics can tell all sort of appalling stories if they do it with charm, flamboyance, self-deprecation or some combination of the three. But Thune just comes across as lazily insensitive, matter-of-fact about his self-centred ways, which does not make him a sympathetic protagonist, not the sort of guy you’d want to hang out with. The petulance is the joke, but it’s very underplayed.

Speaking of his wife’s pregnancy, Thune tells us he doesn’t want to father a girl, leading to an anecdote at the 12-week scan, when he sits like a sulky teenager not wanting to be there. Its payoff has a ‘told you so’ tone as he rubs in the fact he had the last laugh. Elsewehere, he does, at least, feel a bit guilty about spotting a potential suicide and immediately reaching for his cameraphone, making the inappropriate nature behaviour a little more explicit.

Delivered deep and slowly, like an easy-listening radio DJ on the 3am shift, his stories burn slowly, but the fuse  is extinguished before it leads to comedic dynamite. There are some wry chuckles to be had at the precise way he details some of these incidents, but it’s pretty thinly spread over languid storytelling.

He may project the comedic equivalent of a grizzled low-key jazzman, listlessly noodling away in the corner of a late-bar. But even in the realm of low-energy storytelling stand-ups, there are much better options out there.

• Nick Thune is at the Soho Theatre until Saturday.

Review date: 3 Feb 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett