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Russell Howard
- Soho Theatre, London
- 24 February 2007
The penultimate show of his Soho Theatre stint proves that bad time-management hasn’t slowed Howard's comic timing
Tonight Russell Howard overran. Again. Despite the engineer flashing coloured lights midway through his set to stop him, the boy can’t help it. Still, in terms of time-management, he is improving; Wednesday’s show saw him overrun by an hour, tonight it was more like fifteen minutes. Boy, do I wish I’d come on Wednesday - Howard is a charmer and I can’t get enough.
Swaying in and out of his Bristolian lilt and adopting a mish-mash of facial expressions, he half-swallows the microphone to enthusiastically share his love for life’s little things. Things like riding on trains with girls and walking through Soho at night. But not things likes riding in cars with girls (they instigate arguments) or licking chocolate mousse from his ex-girlfriend’s leg. Eighties references show his age (26) as well as that of the audience, and they lapped up his talk of everything from Ninja Turtles to Teen Wolf.
It’s worth remembering that if veteran TV producer Michael Hurll gets his way, Howard’ll have his own family-friendly ITV show before too long. But, heck, I hope not because I reckon Howard would do well to explore some over 18-style darkness. He veers close to nasty stuff, but never dangerously close. Once he suggested he'd sacrificed his social life for stand-up and had his heart broken as a consequence, but this sounded more like a slip of the tongue than part of the script.
So, sure, we laugh and swoon and sigh and salivate (well, he is rather
handsome) right along with him, but for a more rounded show, he could well
afford to draw more on the little horrors that haunt him.
Georgie Hobbs
Read More
- Hurll on Lookout for New Ant and Dec
- For Your Consideration Film Review
- Split Up With Your Girlfriend?
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