Comedy news: James Sherwood: I Fed my Best Friend Her Favourite Cow, Edinburgh Fringe review

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How good is good? And what does it mean to be truly bad? James Sherwood’s show I Fed my Best Friend Her Favourite Cow asks some pretty big, fundamental questions. Its an ambitious undertaking for a mid-afternoon comedy show and one that the comedian approaches in affable i style.

The set itself is enjoyable but a little slow to start, and the premise could use some clarity. For the first ten minutes of the set the performance feels uncomfortable. That said, as soon as Sherwood gets behind the piano a sense of confidence and direction washes into the room.

He looks to the greats and not-so-greats of pop to provide guidance in his journey to understand how to be good. In the process Sherwood’s quirky observations highlight the lyrical silliness of some classic songs, gently poking fun at the pretensions of pop.

Sherwood’s obvious musical talent is best showcased when he gets to work on his own compositions. Tender, absurd, lyrical and ridiculous Sherwood’s songs are wonderful character portraits that sit somewhere between Roald Dahl and the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. It’s a pity that there are only two such songs in the set – more please.

The audience is on side, thanks to Sherwood’s pleasant persona and genial delivery – yet lurking below the amiable bluster are incisive one-liners and some devilishly acerbic asides. This blend of light and dark is highlighted by his enjoyably introspective ’50 reasons why I’m a good person’ and ’50 reasons why I’m a bad person’ sequence which blends personable self-deprecation with audience interaction.

Nonetheless, it feels that the lofty ambitions of the show’s premise are never quite met and the questions raised are danced around, gingerly, and never quite answered. Even the show’s title ‘I fed My Best Friend Her Favourite Cow’ is offhandly referenced, and the gruesome ramifications never fully explored.

 However there may be extenuating circumstances. The show performance reviewed (09/08/2011) comes the day after the worst night of the recent riots, and the shadow of these events looms uncomfortably. Sherwood makes no reference at all to the events – an understandable omission but an uneasy one given the show’s central themes.

Deciding whether or not to reference the events in his set must have been difficult and choosing to go ahead as normal is a valid choice. But the key premise of the set is an exploration of morality, and the mass looting and destruction of the previous night highlights the insubstantialness the set’s content.

That’s not necessarily a criticism of Sherwood as a comedian, but rather of myself as a reviewer who has perhaps allowed the context of the previous night to influence my own perception of the set.

There are however plenty of chuckles and Sherwood really shines when things get musical – particularly towards the end of the set when his Carmina Burana/Sound of Music mash-up hints at a gleefully sinister darkness lacking elsewhere in the set.

James Sherwood - I Fed My Best Friend Her Favourite Cow is on at the Gilded Balloon Teviot @ 3:15pm. For more information click here.

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