From the wings, Larry introduced the support act, George Zacharopoulos, who, as a Greek national (despite having lived in the UK for twenty-three years), still spoke with the accent of Harry Enfield's Stavros. Initially, I thought he was a lazy comic, going for the obvious immigrant jokes and peppering them with unnecessary profanity. Big turn off. Then, his cheeky charm began to shine. His material improved, and I got used to his accent. By the end, I was considering checking out his tour show at Blackfriars in December about his ex-girlfriend, who claimed to be a doctor, previously married with two kids, none of which was true. He shared a funny story about how Larry had sent him a picture of his haemorrhoids for a diagnosis from her, which Larry confirmed was accurate at the start of his set, making his own joke about it.
Larry's delivery is so good you just want to watch and listen to him being funny. It is the mark of a great comedian when you can laugh again at material you've already recently heard. He'd done the Scottish accent material on The Late Show, and he'd talked about his autism diagnosis on the mixed-bill show at St Luke's. The stuff about his nanna was fresh to me, though, and this formed the bulk of the show, which I really enjoyed. I admired and laughed hard at the final punchline, a callback to a previous autism joke. It was the perfect way to end the show.
I didn't enjoy listening to the girl behind me coughing, who couldn't just do one cough and stop. No, she needed at least two: one to loosen and then a deeper, more lung-wrenching one to clear, occasionally followed by a third to remove the remaining residue from her throat. It's just as well the theatre doesn't provide a spittoon, or else she'd have been borrowing her mate's, having filled her own. I guess she just had to swallow it afterwards. Or maybe it pinged back into her lungs like an elastic band.
The tall brunette lady in the short leather skirt, sitting on the right of my wife, wouldn't rise for passing patrons, instead preferring to press her bare legs against the seat. She only vacated her seat once, at the interval. Upon her return, she managed to knock over the pint of Coca-Cola she'd placed under the seat. As it flowed forward, she apologised to the people in front. But their coats were not touching the floor, unlike the people in the two rows in front of them, who lifted up the affected apparel in disgust. Lesson: never leave your coat lying on a raked floor because, if you do, there will always be a careless idiot behind you. Ironically, she didn't kick over her other pint (of water), which was also under her seat, so she didn't go thirsty.
Perhaps Larry's tour name should have been 'Dodge her', referring to all the irritating fruit loops of that particular gender.
Ticket Price: £21.88 x 2, plus transaction fee £3.95 = £47.71
No comments:
Post a Comment