The periodic table is humanity's greatest achievement, says Chris Addison. His show, Atomicity, was nominated in August for a Perrier award. Now touring, it mixes ruminations on chemistry and the atomic composition of the universe with more workaday observational stand-up. Those elements react together with the occasional fizz, but never compound into comic gold.
Appropriately enough given the subject, the usually clean-cut Addison looks like a university lecturer tonight, all beard and cords. There's nothing professorial about the delivery: it's breathless and relentless, and he could profitably vary the pace. But the real frustration here (as with his previous show, on the history of civilisation) is that he barely skims the surface of the ostensible subject. There must be at least a show's worth of jokes, facts and points worth making about the periodic table. So why constantly digress?
Some of Addison's peripheral chatter, such as his routine about combating al-Qaida with childishness, is pretty funny. Likewise a suggestion that the Queen broadcast her Christmas message on grainy video from a Tora Bora cave. There are occasions when he falls back on easy stereotypes. But such lapses are (almost) redeemed by his richly deserved attack on the tabloid idiocy of ITV News.
That said, I prefer the chemistry material because it does what I'd read on the tin. There are 92 elements in the periodic table, Addison tells us, which is an advance on the four our ancestors recognised - earth, air, fire, and Ringo. Dying in a blast in a helium mine, meanwhile, is "the least dignified way to go" - cue last words delivered in a squeaky voice. A climactic peroration celebrates the miracle of humanity's molecular make-up. If that conclusion is more bunsen burner than atomic blaze, that's because, in the preceding hour, we've delved far less deeply into the comedy of chemistry than we might have done.
· At Derby Playhouse (01332 363275) tonight. Then touring.
