Knutsford service station. Doesn't conjure up images of a roller-coaster theatre show, does it? But that's what it has inspired, courtesy of the Welsh standup Rhod Gilbert. Gilbert has dedicated his set to an experience he had last December in this cathedral of the bland off the M6. His shtick is a familiar one: he's the clown who reacts with epic vexation to the most minor of irritations. His success here is a question of degree: he just piles on the frustration, whipping himself into a sweat-storm of pointless rage, wringing the laughs out of some great lines by the sheer scale of his exasperation.
Apparently this Knutsford experience represents Gilbert's effort to re-engage with real life; previous shows have played on the conceit that he lives in the fictional Welsh town of Llanbobl. But he doesn't need this back-to-reality context, and a home video about the Llanbobl illusion feels tacked on. The substance of this show is his long, dark night of the soulless at Knutsford, from his low-level annoyance at being greeted by a photograph of the manager, to rising ire at being informed that the toilets will next be cleaned in 26 minutes.
This is meat-and-potatoes comedy, the laughter of release as we vent our everyday aggravations together. Once Gilbert hits his groove, we're out of Knutsford and into the bedding shop, where he talks togs and quilt consistency ("She said, 'Get down.' I fucking hit the deck"), and off to Afghanistan. Gilbert is there to entertain the troops, but also to escape his carnally voracious 23-year-old girlfriend. Now 40, sex for this flaccid Rhod feels "like a four-year-old trying to hit the bell on a test-your-strength machine". The 23-year-old and the service station may have crushed Gilbert in body and spirit. But in comic terms, he looks indomitable.
