Unlike the curtain-raiser for this show, a bald, moustachioed dancer - appearing to be Parsons - gyrating to Michael Jackson’s Beat It, the comedian himself never really gets into his groove.
Tonight’s tour date at the Lyric (normally home to the musical Thriller, something of irony it turns out) has been chosen for the recording of Parson’s forthcoming DVD Britain’s Got Idiots and that extra layer of responsibility appears to inhibit the star. It may also explain why so much time is given over to working the crowd, a skill that doesn’t come as naturally to Parsons as it does to others. Although he succeeds in generating atmosphere through his efforts, the reprisals of audience banter amid his topical routines can have an undermining effect on momentum. Particularly disruptive is the sequence where Parsons commentates on footage of the audience filing in to the theatre, akin to a weak improvised game that wouldn’t make the cut on Mock the Week, the show that finally broke the circuit veteran as a household face.
For anyone wishing to enter Parsons’ world, not only do they have to surmount extended periods of so-so audience banter, the other hurdle that some find disconcerting over long periods is his vocal style where the rhythm of a joke is emphasised without the benefit of a ‘tune’ or ‘melody’. Nonetheless, though some of his punch lines are as obvious and amplified as his foghorn delivery, when he is in his stride he can still bowl you over with a gag. For example on nuclear energy and the fact that radioactive waste takes 100,000 years to go dormant, he says: “I know what you are thinking ‘there has to be a better way, but I would like to see that episode of Time Team.”.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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