Time: 9.40pm
Capacity: 400 or so – and full.
The theme: Find the Funny. "If you're looking for pathos or deep meaning find another show," says Amos at the beginning. "We're here to have a laugh."
What follows is a mixed set, heavy on audience participation and physical clowning, about such things as celebrity, technology and his efforts to get himself on television. Astoundingly, despite Amos's vow to keep things light, he still decides to close on a poignant and thought-provoking note. It would have been more poignant still, I couldn't help thinking, if he hadn't promised not to.
High point: Lots of energy, lots of larking about, lots of lively repartee with the audience. With his faux-imperious swagger and down-to-earth worldview, fun and goodwill are all but guaranteed at an Amos gig. (Even if the middle-class-bashing is just a little excessive at times.) His story about the Royal Variety Performance, which he played last year, would be worth the entrance fee on its own. Nevertheless, just to make sure we're all getting our money's worth, he appoints a member of the audience to count the laughs as they roll in. By the end, there are too many tallies on the card to count.
Weak spot: I don't know whether the material leads him into it, or if it is just the kind of thing that makes him laugh, but Amos's constant mugging for the crowd is just not my cup of tea. Verbally, he is an excellent comic – indeed a couple of old standby gags, about his face and a little old lady, both of which are verbal, got the biggest laughs of the night. But when he resorts to the physical stuff it starts to feel as if we've all strayed into a children's playground. Making a visual joke out of the phrase "bush fire" by waving frantically at his pubes, for instance, is surely beneath him.
Audience participation: Tonnes. At times the show was as much a conversation as a performance.
Comic equation: (Lee Evans x Stephen Fry) - Lenny Henry (That's an in-joke, by the way, for anyone who's seen the show)
Mark out of 10: 5
Put this on your poster: Coming to a stage near you! But still not on the telly.
