Cool hunting comedy...

I found myself on the Southbank this weekend, and received an impromptu invitation to see Al Murray's show The Pub Landlords's Southbank Saloon at the Wonderground festival... As you do!

I like Al Murray. I "get" it... The satire of his on stage charater is hilarious. His guests at the Southbank Saloon this past Saturday night, however, were not to my taste. Well, that is apart from the £3-budget-"Thriller"-chaps; they were marvellous! I was enthralled and laughed uproariously to show my appreciation.

Back to the others though. A quote that sums up the other "comedians" that night for me: "smuggling out bigotry under a veil of irony". 

Their names escape me - I wish I had taken note so that I could avoid them in future. For the purpose of this comment, I’ll call them “Skinny Irish Guy” and “Bald Chap with Blingy Belt”, perhaps even abbreviated to SIG and BCBB respectively.

SIG was juvenile. I think the only people who would appreciate such overuse of the f-word are adolescents who are still getting to grips with words they don’t hear on C Beebies. If he’d popped a few funny jokes in between the *&^%'s and £$&*!'s - it would have been better. But alas no. Even his Irish accent failed to charm me. Toward the end, he threw out a few amusements, but it was generally not a performance worth repeating.

Al Murray cheered us up after the half time break but at this stage I’d regretted my gloating Facebook status that I was going to see this show. “Careful what you wish for” as the saying goes...

BCBB started with a good crack about “Tin-Tin” that I could imagine working out well but things took a bit of a nasty turn when a couple, who chose to leave after a controversial comment, were verbally abused by this bald badass. He had a proper rant at them, and I felt that the rest audience, giggling with embarrassed/shocked laughter, stayed out of politeness. Perhaps trying not to appear like middle-class-types-who-get-offended-on-behalf-of-others? Who knows.

I’m glad I left midway through his act. I would caution against his belief that his comedy is “art” and it is his artistic privilege to berate an audience in the manner he did. 

Well, that’s him told anyway. 

So - it's one star for Al and one for the old chaps. The other two can try harder next time.