Review by Steve Bennett

Legend. Simple as.

Fresh from his debut BBC Three series, Simon Brodkin’s boldly effervescent lads’ lad is on the sharpest form of his career. Using the full extent of the room, this feral youth runs wild, zipping around with the energy of 100 vodka Red Bulls, leaping seamlessly between effortless banter and prepared material.

He is, for this hour at least, the leader of this ad hoc crew, using every ounce of geezerish charm and well-focussed peer pressure to cajole the audience into having a good time. He can be viciously cheeky with the quick insults he trades – ‘rinsed him!’ he exclaims excitedly - but anything mischievously near-the-knuckle is done with such an delighted butter-wouldn’t-melt grin beaming out from beneath his baseball cap, that you would forgive him anything.

Boys are teased for being gay or geeky, girls chatted up with corny, inappropriately lecherous lines as he grasps at his crotch. By the end of the hour, his brilliantly effective rabble-rousing has made us into a mob, albeit the most good-natured mob in the world. Thank Dizzee he has used his powers for good, not evil.

He gives us a quick recap of his year to date, the highlight of which was getting tasered; running the fact he’s to become an uncle to a close second. He’s already a husband to glamour model Amber, and father to young Stairwell, six, whose birth is described through one of the most outrageously hilarious lines you’ll hear all year.

This is just out-and-out raucous, exuberant fun from start to finish. Sometimes you might see a gag coming – say, a predictable take on the East London Olympics – but there’s plenty of genuinely brilliant gags too. And everyone’s having such a great time that any minor transgression that isn’t going to derail this exhilarating ride.

Whatever you thought of his patchy TV offering, as a live act Nelson is, as he would say, say: ‘Qualiteeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!’

Review date: 24 Aug 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett