Steve Gribbin: Laugh At First Sight
Live Review

There are riots on the streets, the phone-hacking scandal taints the media, police and politicians, and cuts are beginning to bite as the Western world remains in financial meltdown. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, comics are largely ignoring it all, preferring to talk about themselves.

More than 40 shows in, and Steve Gribbin made the first reference to Hackgate. Admittedly, not in forensic depth – he set himself up for a few-bars burst of a song, that’s all – but enough to highlight how inward-looking the rest of stand-up is at the moment.

Gribbin, of course, is from a different generation. He performed his first gig on May 26, 1982, at the Woolwich Tramshed, so he tells us – a time when we were at war in the Falklands, and politics was de rigueur for any comedian worth their salt.

This is supposed to be a show about Gribbin’s decades-long love affair with politics, music and comedy – the latter being sparked by seeing fellow Liverpudlian Alexei Sayle at the Edinburgh Playhouse. In truth, it’s just a few tunes strung together with perfunctory banter and the odd anecdote in between. And although he will do the occasional burst of invective – such as his hatred of the royal family – it’s generally topical material of a milder sort.

Gribbin is one of those musical comics who largely changes the words to hit songs; though thankfully he knows to go in and out as quickly as possible; one quick blast rather than three verses and their choruses.

He’s also been going long enough to have ready-made lines on most subjects; his Fukushima gag was surely a recycled Chernobyl one, and the line about the West having sold weapons to Libya, a relic from the first Gulf War. Some of these are predictable, though he tells them in a jaunty manner, but occasionally one hits the spot: the line about the slogans US troops scrawl on their missiles, especially, was a doozy.

But for all the tangential nods to politics, the best moment was a song about Dr Who sung in the style of Morrissey; although this genre-swapping style is already pretty much sewn up between Bill Bailey and Frisky and Mannish.

Much as he’s anti-capitalist, a few more topical comedians might force Gribbin to up his game; but in an under-served market, his old-school contrariness stands out. His decent material is delivered efficiently, even if it’s without the streak of genuine rebelliousness that might bring it alive.