Red Richardson: Bugatti Live
There’s a section of Bugatti Live in which Red Richardson bemoans how fruitlessly time-consuming scrolling through social media can be.
It seems a tad ungrateful given all Instagram has done for him. His ‘stay toxic’ videos have won him nearly 400,000 followers, allowing him to embark on his first UK tour –including the 1,000-seater Shepherds Bush Empire – and led to lucrative jobs advertising Dr Squatch grooming products in the style of Ron Burgundy and 32Red Casino, following in the footsteps of Keith Lemon and Paddy McGuinness.
He’s not just a viral phenomenon, though. Even without the internet, he’d be a robust circuit act. Indeed, as a collection of unconnected routines without any explicit theme or story, Bugatti Live can feel like an extended club set.
Perhaps the strongest sections pertain to ego, image and masculinity, playfully asking where’s the male equivalent to the body positivity movement when ‘small dick’ remains such a wounding insult. There are strong gags, too, on the expectation that men should physically fight for honour, and the pride of David Carradine’s wife, who deludedly insists such an alpha male as the Kill Bill star must have had a more noble death than an extreme wank gone awry.
Meanwhile, the female version of male ego is probably encapsulated by the Marilyn Monroe meme ‘if can’t handle me at my worst you don’t desire be at my best’ – which Richardson rightly mocks for excusing all manner of bad behaviour that surely shouldn’t be executed.
Away from such topics, he’s got a couple of strong act-outs as to why Pepsi still exists and imagining what the Saudi version of Roy Chubby Brown must be like, making jokes offensive to the sexist status quo there.
Separating the art from the artist is another running theme, questioning how far we should go in ‘cancelling’ people. It’s probably not something Richardson has to worry about too much, for though he can sail close to the wind, it’s all with logical justification – and he never oversteps the mark.
This is probably one of the more workmanlike sections, of which there are several, but Richardson’s assuredly brusque delivery and focused writing keeps even these routines entertaining, if lacking the sharpness of sections with greater relevance to the world.
He’s slightly lacking in the USP that would make him stand out from the crowded field of other roguish thirtysomething men who a pretty good at stand-up – nothing here could be described as a pure ‘Red Richardson’ routine – but he’s certainly a funny and skilled practitioner of his art.
His hour was preceded by not one but three support acts – though it’s a shame he couldn’t find a woman among them.
Josh Weller reflects amusingly on being mixed race and using white privilege when it suits, is cheekily sacrilegious and engages in some effective crowd work; Ukrainian-Russian Dimitri Bakanov also had a take on his background, leading into some deliciously dark material about his father’s suicide and grandmother’s dementia, setting the scene for Bobby Mair, Richardson’s partner-in-podcast, to go bleaker still, but with jet-black snapshots from his messed-up life given a jaunty sprinkling in a set that was all-too short.
A couple of years ago, Richardson was Mair’s support - how things can change so quickly.
Review date: 11 Nov 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at:
Shepherds Bush Empire