Steve Hall – Original Review | Review by Steve Bennett

Steve Hall – Original Review

Note: This review is from 2007

Review by Steve Bennett

You might not think it from his droll, monotone delivery, but Steve Hall loves childishness – especially that part of it that revels in petty insults and cheeky swearing, done for no other reason than it’s neither big nor clever.

From his low-key, almost bookish demeanour, you might expect something highbrow. Think again. The focus is mostly on his gauche, clumsy behaviour as the self-crowned ‘king of the wallies’.

Well, I say ‘self-crowned’… his unsympathetic father might have had something to do with that, having doled out a lifetime of sarcastic putdowns to his graceless son.

This upbringing is now a key part of Hall’s set, and if it left any psychological scars, it doesn’t show. As a comic, he can appreciate his dad’s quirky bluntness and ever-inventive cursing. Plus, he now owns his awkwardness, turning potential embarrassment into entertainingly self-deprecatory comedy fodder.

Hall’s far from being a showman, always preferring the dry and sardonic over the animated. If he ever gets wound up, his middle-class reticence stops him becoming too emotive. But the downbeat commentary on real-life tales more often than not contains more than enough wry wit and well-chosen language to get the point across, and raise a laugh in the process.

That said, a couple of his routines are rather too involved. For example, his jibes against fundamentalist Bible-thumping homophobe George Hargreaves – an old college friend of Hall’s – take too much set-up, when the amusing central fact that he wrote the gay anthem So Macho cannot be topped by any window-dressing Hall wraps around it.

Hall is probably best known as being a third of the We Are Klang sketch group, which joyfully and exuberantly celebrate over-the-top stupidity. But as a stand-up in his own right Hall can offer equally assured, if much lower-key, laughs.

Review date: 6 Oct 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.