The common thing to say about ex-Edinburgh comedy award champ Adam Riches is that, yes, his audience participation is intimidating, but there’s nothing to fear because the joke’s always on him. I’m not sure about that: the joke’s often on his front-row patsies, and I for one would be horrified to be dragooned on stage. So I entered Soho theatre with trepidation – the more so because, well, I’m male. Riches usually targets men. His comedy sends up alpha malehood, monsters it, and – one might argue – exemplifies it.
But it’s also, once you’re over your participation-phobia, uproarious good fun. OK, there are moments when laughter is staunched by sympathy for Riches’ harassed stooges – as when one “volunteer” (hah!) must simulate the sounds of sexual intercourse for our delectation. But Riches is deceptively skilled at bulldozing people’s reserve. There’s an intriguing moment tonight when a front-row refusenik simply won’t play ball with one of Riches’ coercive stunts. Our host neither backs down nor bullies – but wins the day, with a Muhammad-to-the-mountain reversal that brilliantly spikes the standoff.
All of this is played out under the guise of a character-comedy show, with Riches masquerading as macho actor Sean Bean (“I wasn’t born, I was smelted”), a deep-south tattooist with electric toothbrushes for hands, and as Ryan Gosling’s randy mother. The characterisations are loud, broad and paper-thin enough for Riches to crash through and pass subversive comment on proceedings. (“This is the most ill-conceived sketch I’ve ever attempted …”)
It’s daft, it’s hellbent on our entertainment, and amid all the interactive tomfoolery there’s lurid writing and some indelibly silly moments. Watching an audience member work out how to slaughter a swivel-chair horse was – in its incongruity, its democratic spirit, and its confidence that whatever happens will be funny – vintage Riches.
• Until 3 January. Box office: 020-7478 0100. Venue: Soho theatre, London.
• Paul Flecky: ‘My job is to hurl things, chant things, put waders on a man’
