Default Region
South East - South Midlands is not your default region.
South East - South Midlands

Area RSS Feeds

Venue Details
Reading Hexagon

Reading Hexagon

Queen's Walk
Reading
Berks
RG1 7UA
UK
Official Reading Hexagon web site
Box office: 0118 960 6060
  Hotels near venue

Sign-up for Reading Hexagon's RSS Feed  Venue Listings

Loading...
+
Reviews from this venue
+
Stephen Merchant: Hello Ladies (Stephen Merchant)

Stephen Merchant - Live Review

Stephen Merchant: Hello Ladies
Robbie Jack

He might be 6ft 7in, but Stephen Merchant has long been in someone else’s shadow. ‘His Nibs’ as he calls him, or ‘you-know-who’. But in his long-awaited debut stand-up tour, The Office co-creator doesn’t just establish himself as a comedian in his own right, but proves he deserves a place among the best.

Boldly inviting the press to review him in Ricky Gervais’s home town of Reading further tempts comparisons, although there aren’t really that many. They both have a certain on-stage arrogance, that’s true, but where his colleague’s persona is high-status, hiding behind a phoney irony, Merchant’s is low. It’s made abundantly clear he’s got nothing with which to back up his air of superiority, being a pedantic, penny-pinching geek who got lucky with a sitcom or two. No wonder he can’t find a wife, the avowed aim of this show.

For those who don’t know who he is – ‘as if!’ he indignantly harrumphs – he digs out some press clippings, supposedly positive, but inadvertently humiliating. He’s always the loser, you see, as reinforced when he shares with us how his brobdingnagian height has informed his personality, making him both arrogant and self-consciously insecure. Sounds like the perfect storm of psychological flaws any comedian needs.

On the topic of his height, he avoids any cliché, as he does throughout this resolutely entertaining show, delivered in that charmingly modest West Country burr that’s so disarming it can even give a bank a friendly tone.

Even on subjects that might appear familiar, such as porn in the age before broadband, or a geek-friendly routine about Venn diagrams, Merchant finds his own path. The weakest material he has, probably the routines about cinema-goers annoyingly munching popcorn or the iniquity of splitting restaurant bills, is still solid.

But when his material shines, he really shines. One story is particularly brilliant; a tale of being trapped at a wedding reception with a dull woman, her insufferable husband and their hyperactive toddler that would make the ideal sitcom scene, complete with memorable visual gag and perfect pay-off. You see why he’s done so well on the telly, even if teaming up with Gervais meant shelving what would clearly have been an impressive stand-up career.

This point is conclusively proved with the final section, where he shows the women in the audience who ‘wouldn’t mind a piece of Steve’ what they can expect in the bedroom. Logistics alone are quite some challenge, as he deftly demonstrates with a microphone stand substituting for the ‘lucky’ lady, of average stature. ‘I thought it was going to be classier than this, as well,’ he laments, as he catches himself miming in flagrante, but the wanton abandonment of decorum is what makes it so funny.

The most hilarious moment, though, will be seared on your mind’s eye forever: the close-up image of what his face would look like bearing down on you. It sure sends a shiver down the spine and explains, in the well-chosen language he always employs, why there’s ‘not a lot of repeat business back at Chez Steve’.

The same surely can’t be said of this show, which is more than good enough to justify a return ticket. Even when the straight stand-up’s finished there’s another treat, an encore which takes the familiar sketch-show trope of bad, over-earnest acting and makes it into a scene which ramps up the cringeworthy laughs with every deliberately clunky line.

If they gave out Golden Globes for stand-up, Merchant would surely have something else to squeeze into his already packed trophy cabinet.

Date of live review: Wednesday 14th Sep, '11
Review by Steve Bennett

What's coming up at Reading Hexagon?

20:00 - Saturday 11th Feb, '12
Prices: £20
Show: Reginald D Hunter: Sometimes Even the Devil Tells the Truth
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Monday 12th Mar, '12
Prices: £20
Show: Sarah Millican: Thoroughly Modern Millican
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Thursday 29th Mar, '12
Prices: £18.50
Show: Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
19:30 - Saturday 5th May, '12
Prices: £18.50
Show:
Show starts: 19:30 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
19:30 - Sunday 6th May, '12
Prices: £18 (£16 concs)
Show: Andy Hamilton’s Hat Of Doom
Show starts: 19:30 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Thursday 10th May, '12
Prices: £21
Show: Simon Amstell: Numb
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Friday 22nd Jun, '12
Prices: £20
Show:
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Tuesday 26th Jun, '12
Prices: £25
Show: Rhod Gilbert: The Man with the Flaming Battenberg Tattoo
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Wednesday 27th Jun, '12
Prices: £25
Show: Rhod Gilbert: The Man with the Flaming Battenberg Tattoo
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
Friday 5th Oct, '12
Prices: Call for prices
Show: Alan Davies: Life Is Pain
20:00 - Saturday 13th Oct, '12
Prices: Call for prices
Show: Kevin Bloody Wilson: Cop-U-Later tour
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
20:00 - Thursday 18th Oct, '12
Prices: £33.50 and £28
Comics: Joan Rivers
Info: The Now or Never Tour
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Friday 19th Oct, '12
Prices: £17.50
Show: Jason Byrne: People's Puppeteer
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
20:00 - Saturday 20th Oct, '12
Prices: £15
Show:
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
20:00 - Tuesday 23rd Oct, '12
Prices: £21
Show: Kevin Bridges: The Story Continues...
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
19:30 - Sunday 25th Nov, '12
Prices: £15
Show: Mark Watson Live 2012
Show starts: 19:30 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Friday 11th Jan, '13
Prices: £25
Show:
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)
Recommended
20:00 - Tuesday 5th Mar, '13
Prices: £25
Show:
Show starts: 20:00 (Doors open approx 30 mins earlier)