What a change in Alfie Brown! Three years ago, he announced himself with a show full of passionate intensity, critiquing culture and the comedy industry. His fierceness felt risky: it wasn’t cool to care this much. And now? “I’ve lost the ability to be morally absolute about anything,” he says, in a show that greets the “No More Page 3” campaign and the Israel-Palestine conflict with little more than a harrumph.
He explains why. We’ve got a comedian, not unlike Liam Williams, with strong leftwing instincts yet lacking the confidence to articulate them on stage. But whereas Williams makes a dramatic feature of that self-doubt, Brown – it seems – is still working out what to do with it.
The results are mixed, in a performance that lasts less than 45 minutes. At his worst, Brown mocks moral conviction while offering little but ennui in its place. He is better when his takedown of, say, current affairs coverage implies a positive, as when he imagines a Daily Politics show that prizes conversation over gladiatorial debate, or a news bulletin reacting to an Ebola outbreak not with bland professionalism but visceral terror.
It’s a show of two halves: the first 20 minutes aren’t social commentary, they’re about Brown’s sudden family life, after he and fellow comic Jessie Cave had a baby following a one-night stand. Give or take an impromptu blowjob, this section is endearing but conventional (certainly in comparison with Cave’s show on the same subject), as our host relates his experiences of early fatherhood: attending the birth, loving his kid, wanting to make the world safe for his son.
That’s what leads to the political material, the varying quality of which is usually redeemed by Brown’s sly charm and a sense that, even when cynicism gains the upper hand, his intelligence and frustrated hope are fighting back.
- At Soho theatre, London, until 14 November. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
