Chris Radburn: The Warm-Up Guy

Note: This review is from 2007

Review by Steve Bennett

Odd concept for a show, this. Chris Radburn pretends he’s doing the warm-up for a TV programme and… well, that’s it. It’s not a clever dramatic device, he just does bits of stand-up and banter as you might expect at a free studio recording, but charges $18 for it and calls it a show.

The clue might come when he explains that a warm-up guy’s brief is not to be too funny as that would risk upstaging the real star. And Radburn is never in danger of that, simply trotting though a largely familiar comedy landscape.

Every so often he’ll get the audience to practice applause, whooping or hand-waving, which appears suspiciously like an attempt to shore up the unremarkable material. But it’s doomed to failure when, as on this night, there are just six people in the audience – seven if you count the drunk who wandered in for five minutes and tried to steal the limelight.

Radburn remains unfazed with the tiny turnout, and ploughs through his instantly forgettable material with confidence and good humour.

But no individual personality shines through as he ticks every box in the Stand-Up For Dummies handbook. Any comic who does gags about Baby On Board signs in this day and age deserves to have their artistic licence revoked.

Perhaps this is audition piece, a blatant showcase for any TV execs passing through the festival who may be have lucrative warm-up work to hand out. It certainly appears it’s a job he could do – but whether he’s a comic with enough to say that it’s worth an hour listening to him… well, that’s a different prospect altogether.

Reviewed by:Steve Bennett
Melbourne, April 2007

Review date: 1 Jan 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Live comedy picks

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.