Tim Vine - Live Review

Comedians, by and large, present their art surprisingly seriously. The storytellers and observationalists want to come across as the Everyman; while the philosophers and activists remain earnest about the message on which they hang the gags. The trend is such that even pun-mongers these days tend to present their work deadpan, as if each one-liner is a beautiful creation only to be appreciated in isolation.

But Tim Vine is one of the few holding up the music-hall tradition of being recklessly daft. He makes no pretence of the fact that his entire existence – at least on stage – is utterly preposterous. The wordplay is flagged up as cheap tat, but he’ll bang it out regardless, with a cheery acknowledgement of the dubious quality of the entertainment he’s offering.

It’s a disarming stance. You may enter the auditorium worried about the impression you give to the world and your peers, but a few minutes watching the idiot on stage, dressed in a crimson soldier’s tunic and a hat made out of balls of wool, and you can forget such trappings – you’re never going to look as stupid as that, so relax. Vine’s done his job, making the mundane concerns of day-to-day life evaporate.

His audience buy into this pantomime, too. And pantomime it is. The expected response is to groan, or sometimes cheer, the gags, and the crowd oblige. It will come as no surprise to learn that he’s just finished a stint in Snow White at the Richmond Theatre.

Much of the material is so cheesy he should be sponsored by Babybel. ‘What do you call a bundle of hay in a church? Christian Bale!’ But the force of the onslaught is disarming; the gags come at you like a volley of machine-gun fire, and you can’t avoid them all. Gradually the ‘wa-hays’ yield to more impulsive laughter, as the audience start enjoying this verbal clowning for real, and not just ironically.

For all the contrived, laboured wordplay, there are also some genuine gems in the mix, brilliantly concise gags that shine brightly. He acknowledges the fact that his method is to throw enough mud at the wall and hope enough sticks; but it’s clear despite his knockabout stage manner, he takes the task of gag-writing seriously. This is an hour and a bit’s worth of new gags, and you’ve got to admire his punmanship.

His is, of course, famously the only comedian to be inadvertently plagiarised by the dead, with many of his gags winding up attributed to Tommy Cooper. His style is, indeed, very similar, save for the magic element which comes from his ever-faithful support act John Archer.

Added to the mix are snippets of tacky songs and a bag so stuffed full of cheap props it must trigger an excess baggage charge. Here’s a phone with meringues stuck to the receiver, here’s a papier mache mountain, here’s a card with BNAG written on it – that’s bang out of order. There’s even a rubber chicken, how corny and unfashionable is that? But that’s Vine for you.

He revels in the shambles of it all, and sometimes it seems like his catchphrase is ‘I’d hoped that would get a better laugh…’ which he seamlessly integrates into his daft shtick. Sometimes he slides into the unprofessional as he looks through his sheath of notes to see which of his hundreds of gags he’s not yet got to, causing a lull in his otherwise full-throttle delivery, but hopefully that’ll be cured as the tour progresses.

There’s definitely an art behind his nonsense – a fact that’s highlighted by his audacious party piece: pen behind the ear. This is a man who should know better trying, and repeatedly failing to pull off a trick that, realistically, is unspectacular even when he does succeed. There’s no joke to it, but it’s marvellously entertaining and the audience cheer him on as if he were a British Wimbledon hope. Had this been done by a more ‘serious’ comedian, it would be hailed as a daring avant-garde piece. Instead, it’s knockabout high-jinks.

Die-hard Vine fans will also be pleased to see the brief return of Flag Hippo in the closing moments of the show, for one quick joke. You might think it’s a lot of effort to go to for a single laugh – but Vine would never think like that; for him nothing’s too much trouble for a chuckle. And that’s his irresistible charm.

Julian Clary - Live Review

From Julian Clary’s sloppy opening to his big climax, he’ll make your orifice gape wide open.

It’s called a yawn.

Where once this his act was playfully outrageous, it now seems largely mechanical; going through the formulaic motions to produce one ‘ooh missus’ moment after the next. Some of these retain their capacity to surprise and amuse – usually when he steers clear of the obvious innuendo – but all too often they hit a predictable rut.

When he mentions the chickens he keeps at his home, you know a mention of a ‘big cock’ isn’t far behind – while he seems to have called his new dog Jism, just so he can come up with contrivances about ‘Jism coming flying through the door’.

‘Dorking?’ he says quizzically, moments after roller-blading awkwardly on to the sloped stage in his shocking pink outfit. ‘Sounds like some sort of deviant sexual activity to me’. No shit, Julian, everything sounds like some sort of deviant sexual activity to you.

He just doesn’t seem to be trying any more, with his material delivered with more weariness than verve. But then it’s hard to muster up much enthusiasm for hoary old lines about ‘sucking on a Fisherman’s Friend’. One of the biggest chuckles comes from him telling the pub joke about going to the doctor, who tells him he’s going to have to stop masturbating. Why? Because she was trying to examine him. Very funny, but hardly original.

At least these are actual gags, however dated. While he may joke that much of his show is ‘aimless rambling’, it’s rather too close to the truth, as he fills us in on his now-mundane life as a settled 50-year-old who’s in a stable relationship with a communications strategist, off the booze, the drugs and the casual sex. Not exactly an inherently fascinating lifestyle.

His milestone age is the supposed inspiration for this show, allowing him to look back on his career; which pretty much means retelling the Norman Lamont joke that made him persona non grata after the British Comedy Awards 16 years ago, and some lame anecdotes from his time on Strictly Come Dancing – most of which seem to involve revelations about the pros’ penis sizes.

He has one story from his wayward youth about an Italian basketball player who he picked up for casual sex, despite his unconvincing protestations of heterosexuality, who it later transpired was an Albanian people trafficker bent on kidnapping him. Yet even this high drama is told in such a perfunctory way that Clary might as well be reading out the ingredients on a bowl of soup.

The second half offers more scope for the one thing Clary does still have an apparent interest in – bitching about the drearily unfashionable civilians who’ve trolled out to see him. But not before he’s gone through the comedy staple of reading out the local newspaper in a sarcastic voice, mocking the fact that little goes on in this sleepy town. He hits gold with a story about a flower and fruit competition, but not without getting through some easy sneering first.

Two victims are duly brought up on stage for the set-piece ending, some guff about psychic ability. Clary has some fun bantering with them, thought the actual bit of business he puts them through is remarkably shallow. Wear a blindfold and guess what you’re drinking, he tells the hapless victims, before holding up a card telling the audience that it’s ‘Vanessa Feltz’s recycled urine.’ And just how lazy a reference is that? Feltz is always the No 1 go-to celebrity if you can’t be arsed to think of a target for your joke.

Double entendres may be a timeless staple of British comedy, but they can go limp in the wrong hands – oops there goes another one – and Clary’s starting to seem as dated as a Donald McGill postcard; a historical curiosity that has lost its capacity to shock and amuse, even if you retain a fondness for his work.