Chortling at Joe Wilkinson at The Bloomsbury Theatre

Just a few minutes’ walk from Euston station, nestled within the UCL campus, is the modern and spacious Bloomsbury Theatre which was hosting the final gig of Joe Wilkinson’s UK tour last night. To be honest, I haven’t seen Joe in the BBC3 Sitcom “Him & Her” or in “Have I got news for you?”, “Never mind the Buzzcocks”, “The Rob Brydon Show” or “Russell Howard’s Good News” so I was pretty open minded and didn’t really know what to expect.

He came on stage with his arms in the air (a key element of his comedy appears to be his gesturing – it’s a very physical kind of comedy) to roars of approval. He looked disconcertingly like my neighbour. After climbing off the stage to give some hugs to (male) members of the audience, he plucked a piece of wood from a crumbling balcony and put it in his pocket. He ad libs extremely well. He nattered a bit about the locality while pacing restlessly but languidly around the large stage – managing to convey an interesting conflict of displacement activity and complete ease.

He introduced the warm up act – Alastair Green – and left us too it. Alastair started well with some great gags about Prince and mice. I was intrigued by his talk about colds – “interesting” he said “rather than comedy” and a great line about being the only comedian approved by the BMA as being medically accurate. However, things went downhill after that for me with the majority of his gags firmly rooted in the “poo and pee” category. The young guy sitting along from me (and it was a predominantly young audience) thought it was hilarious – he was laughing pretty hard throughout. The set dwindled and dragged and the final gag was a complete mess. Sorry, but if he’d kept it shorter and more punchy he might have got my vote. He didn’t.

After the interval, Joe returned to the stage. There some good anecdotes from his tour destinations – Dundee and Doncaster featured. He did “the stand” – which is great physical comedy – and he did generate a lot of laughs with similar acting on a cash machine gag. I liked his “not a real man” angle on the strip joint and yet more great acting with the staring babies stories. And I laughed hard too at the gags about Community Support Officers – mostly again because of his acting. Yes he was funny – but he seemed to appeal more to the younger audience than to me.

Think I like my comedy to be a bit harder hitting and faster paced. Back to the Bear Cat Comedy Club I go.