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Marcus Brigstocke is clearly delighted at being able to return to stand-up and to the Fringe after a pandemic-enforced absence, but he doesn’t feel that lockdown was without its benefits, the most notable of which was finally being able to tell parents and relatives that they couldn’t come to stay at Christmas.
This hour-long show is inspired by lockdown and trying to find the positives to take out of it. Running in parallel with this is his failure to find almost anything positive to say about the present.
The ‘absolute shower’ in the title of the show seems to be a reference to the UK government with Brigstocke making no apologies if he offends any Tories in the audience.
He also takes out his ire on the way the TV news no longer ends, and the number of vox pop interviews and phone-ins where the qualification for taking part appears to be knowing nothing about anything.
His parody of the Jeremy Vine show stands out as being so close to what the show often becomes that you could close your eyes and almost imagine you were listening to the radio.
The show is not without its more heartfelt moments, particularly when he talks about his love for his wife and talks fondly about his neighbour, an 80+ year old nurse who offered to return to nursing during the pandemic. Although, with Brigstocke being a veteran of stand-up, he never lets the sentimentality hang around for long, and the story of the nurse quickly turns into one of the best running jokes of the set.
Brigstocke knows his audience and has produced a show that will delight his fans and may win over new followers, although they’re not likely to include anyone feeling a sense of hope at the prospect of either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as our next Prime Minister.
Pleasance Dome, to 13 August
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