Comedy news: Latitude 2009 review: Paul Hamilton at Robin Ince's Book Club

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And so the creative feast that is Latitude finally arrived last weekend, with or without the threat of a deluge from above.

It is difficult not to be overcome with some kind of star syndrome at Latitude, although the musical highlights aren’t on a par with the likes of Bruce Springsteen or Blur at Glastonbury, for a small festival it is able to attract a really strong celebrity crowd.

The festival site is so small that you end up spotting people at every corner. Whether it is Will Hodgson and Mark Thomas taking time out at the side of the Literary tent or Ed Byrne heading into the woods to check out some contemporary light performance, or Andre Vincent planning a late night romp through the Latitude site looking for material for the Early Edition, the most overheard line has to be ‘that’s that actor/actress from you know, from that thing on TV/Radio...’ and so on.

But one person in particular has taken Latitude by the horns this year and that man is Robin Ince. His show Robin’s Ince’s Book Club is on so often he may as well open a bookshop and get Dylan Moran to run it. Part of me wonders whether he has, as the infamous Moran has disappeared from the comedy bill altogether, possibly to purloin Ince’s books from the Literature tent stage in some undercover subterfuge with Bill Bailey in tow.

But back to the Book Club. Ince’s show appeared no less than 15 times (some counts 19, to be honest were not entirely sure) over the weekend and Robin even managed to find time to drown out the Pretenders with a set at the comedy tent as well. Simply put, Ince is the festival equivalent of Waterstone’s: You see him on every corner.

At times it does seem that Robin Ince’s book club is an excuse for more stand up. Josie Long, despite her obvious ability, did repeat a lot of her routine set that we’d seen at Glastonbury only a few weeks before.

But what Ince does manage to do is bring his guests out of their comfort zone to produce some, at times, excellent material.

Ok, we know that this kind of approach doesn’t always work, but without Ince keeping her on stage I don’t think I ever would have seen Long find a way of ad lib part of her previous set in an excellent new way with a skit about the perverted way marketing campaigns want women to return to an almost pre-pubescent state: ‘Come on women, it’s your duty to get rid or it, shave it all off, you owe it to your men,’ she pleaded before moving on to deride the Harley Street Medical Clinic’s plastic surgery posters.

The resulting hilarity got a deserved round of applause and highlighted why the Book Club is the creative muse that it is.

The highlight of Friday though had to be a set by Kevin Eldon as his poetical alter-ego, Paul Hamilton. An excellent orator, part of Hamilton’s appeal is the way Kevin Eldon plays the Hamilton character with such deadpan humour that his demeanour alone is cause for a quick chortle, but Hamilton is more than that.

Hamilton plays openly with the audience in a manner I last saw from Daniel Kitson. He can spend close to ten minutes laboriously taking suggestions for an improvised poem from the audience before simply giving up saying ‘it doesn’t always work you know’. In the hands of a lesser comedian this is a recipe for disaster but with Hamilton the audience are thrilled to be disappointed.

Ince is humble about the Book Club phenomenon, once describing it as 'a place to fail without fear and hopefully discover something interesting on the way' but there is no doubt that what it does best is break new ground for new audiences, which is what new comedy needs most.

Tim Clark

Such Small Portions at Latitude Festival, in association with National Express

(This review was originally posted in July 2009)