Review of comedian's show about a Hollywood party crush

‘This is relatable, right?’ says Simon Amstell a few scenes into his story about donning a Gucci suit and heading to a Hollywood party whose invitation begins: ‘Leonardo DiCaprio invites you…’

And, you know, it kinda is. This might be a stand-up show with an A-list cast, but Amstell’s candour about his intensely-examined emotions ensure I Love It Here is a human story anyone can connect to, even if they've never had a pep talk from Charli XCX.

The title nods to the fact that after a career build on eviscerating his angst and laying it out for all to see, Amstell ‘loves himself’ now, accepting his good fortune, comfortably off and enjoying his settled relationship with his boyfriend of 14 years, albeit with a certain openness they’re both on board with.

Like the Dalai Lama of comedy, Amstell offers guidance towards enlightenment that has so often eluded him. He now urges us all to surrender to our fate and follow in his footsteps in ‘fighting the fear of who I am’ and ‘sitting with the pain’ rather than fighting it, all in the name of helping personal growth.

But has he really unlocked cosmic karma? While some things have changed, it wouldn’t be a Simon Amstell show without neurotic self-analysis and romantic yearning. In this case, the latter comes in the lithe form of The Singer, an unnamed celebrity he encounters at that LA party having long admired him from afar.

Whether trying to impress a famous crush carries quite the same jeopardy for a successful 46-year-old man as it does a teenager may be moot, but Amstell always seems authentic with his emotions. 

Besides, there’s still a power imbalance that has him constantly on the back foot. He might be reasonably well-known in Britain, but his fame is an unobservable fraction of that possessed by the global megastars he now mingles with. Plus his fears about his fading celebrity on home turf is an excellent source of material, playing to his arrogance and his anxiety in equal measure.

That archetype of a comedian being a heady mix of high ego and low self-confidence is writ large in Amstell. He doles out delightfully arch putdowns about the dreary lives of his audience that are so waspishly eloquent you can forgive how withering he’s being to us. And we forgive him because he’s so frank about his own shortcomings, the semi-faux self-aggrandisement apparently as much to convince himself of his brilliance as us.

‘’What other comedian would be this vulnerable?’ he asks, rhetorically, as he equates that quality with brilliance in the art of stand-up. If that is the measure, it’s hard to argue with his conclusion that he is the best in his field, or at least one of them.

All the self-analysis and narrative craft would mean little if this wasn’t funny, and it is – mainly because we are so enveloped in his world. He’s an excellent storyteller who has us invest in the relationship he craves with The Singer, however improbable that outcome may seem.

Along the way he takes diversions into stories such as the peculiar encounters he had with God during 'mushroom ceremonies’ – a very North London word for getting high  – and some musings on a slightly broken relationship with his father, skimmed over compared to some of his other navelgazing, but present nonetheless.

After all the mockery of himself and us – and to a lesser extent the Hollywood elite he’s in awe of – Amstell ends with an honest and tender moment of peak vulnerability. It’s an affecting conclusion, given how much we’ve got to know him over the previous 75 minutes or so.

• I Love It Here is at the Arches beneath London Bridge station tonight and again from March 11 to 14.

Review date: 28 Feb 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Arches London Bridge