one4review | On 13, Aug 2016

The gig opened with a robo-compere doing all the stereotype lines via a lager box head, a voice machine that sounded like a cross between Siri and my satnav, and a bit of pointing.

Then on came David Longley, complete with sparkly gold jacket, to kick off with his club set, then to move between that and his real, authentic voice, explaining why he hates the audiences he gets at weekends for his club set, (Not us. We, apparently, are his friends) and only does the work for the money and freedom it buys him.

Through some of his club pieces and the additional background to them, he makes some fascinating, insightful points about perceived prejudice, body-shaming, how comedic material evolves, and his inability to control the ways an audience can respond to his jokes.

He then rounds it off by telling us how all TV comics are the same, how he hates all his audiences, and that the public shouldn’t have a sense of entitlement about how they’re going to be made to laugh. He then just left.

I hate to break it to him, but when the audience have parted with their ticket money, they are entitled to assume he’ll do all he can to make them laugh. That’s the contract. It may have been meant to be a deep, meta-comedy ending. It felt more like letting the side down on an interesting, informative, and otherwise sometimes funny show.

Reviewed by Gill
The Stand Comedy Club 3 & 4
To 28th Aug (not 15th) 20:15