Sunday, 25 May 2025

Nick Mohammed is Mr Swallow in Show Pony, Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Sunday 25th May, 2025


When this tour was announced, I decided against attending because I didn't find Mr Swallow's appearances on 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown funny. Then, I was offered a free ticket (cheers, Bob). The week of the gig, when my wife heard the show included magic, she decided she wanted to go, too, so I had to buy her a ticket. I managed to find her a single seat with a good view in the Grand Circle.


In a neat quirk of fate, Liam Withnail was the support act, which explained his absence from the Comedy Roadshow lineup the night before. I knew little about him, but I was looking forward to seeing him.

The proximity of our seats to the stage (and the stairs to the stage) made me feel uncomfortable. I knew Mr Swallow would need assistants from the audience for his magic tricks, and, this close, I knew I wasn't safe from being the target of crowd work. The copious legroom did not redress this nervousness. My wife was most amused by the picture of our view (see above).
Fuck!
I couldn't even relax during the pre-show music or sustain a conversation, such were my nerves. My ticket-providing friend agreed he would take one for the team should the situation arise, fall on the proverbial sword prop, as it were. 

The show began with Mr Swallow, dressed casually in a cardigan, going over his professional history while getting the audience to mix up a Rubik's cube. He then asked for a volunteer, someone who had never completed the puzzle before, to come up onto the stage so he could help them achieve this goal. To make matters harder, the woman in question, let's call her Diana, would finish the puzzle facing the audience, with her hands behind her back. Bob spotted how the trick was achieved, thanks to his viewing angle, so close to the side of the stage.

Liam Withnail was a revelation. An Essex comedian and former teacher living in Glasgow, he owned the stage with a confident set about stopping drinking and the bad symptoms of his ulcerative colitis, finishing on a well-received joke about an experience at airport security. 

After the interval, Mr Swallow returned, this time in a gold-sequinned jacket, to tell us about his interview with the BB, ahem, television network about getting his own sitcom. His humour is silly but slick, detailed, and terribly funny. He uses the screen to visualise his points (age ratings on Lego, Bafta show press reviews), and he is never afraid to make Mr Swallow appear as a fool while also being clever, demonstrating deft physical skills and magic tricks.

As a character act, Mr Swallow is quite a revelation. He can tell the exact number of cards that have been cut from a deck by their weight. He can tell who is lying and telling the truth from their voice. He can flip up his shoe and catch it. 

The finale tied together the many disparate elements of the show to bring about a satisfying conclusion. His material might not work well in short form on TV, but it was wonderful to witness in person. Charming, witty, clever, and funny, a super evening's entertainment, I loved it.   




 

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