It is always interesting to watch a performer when you know they're at a crucial moment in their careers, when everything may be about to go pear-shaped. Harry Hill, after what must have been a lifetime high-point appearance as Morrissey on Matthew Kelly's Celebrity Stars in their Eyes, now faces such a moment. A question mark hangs over his television show, and his advertisements for a range of mobile phones are jaw-droppingly unfunny. If you're a comedian, not being funny is a bad thing.
Through some of the websites set up to trumpet his genius, Harry has told the fans that he doesn't care if the TV show stops because television doesn't pay very well, and he prefers doing stand-up. And as he springs on to the Palace stage, dressed as Morrissey once again, and shoots us "leddies and gennelmen" straight into a liddel musical medley, he doesn't seem to be sweating it at all.
Hill specialises in a fairly gentle, very English type of entertainment. There's no plan to overthrow the evil political dictatorship (aka Tony Blair), no plan to advance the frontiers of comedy (see The League of Gentlemen), and no bid for domination of the entertainment universe (Ben Elton, perhaps?). Instead, there are mild ribbings of the audience: from the safety of his own hairless head, he greets a baldie in the audience: "You just noticed it was taking longer and longer to wash your face, right?"
There are odd verbal and physical tics that longtime fans will recognise, but which can be slightly bewildering to the Hill-novice - why does he want to stroke a pony? Why are badgers excluded from the theatre? And there are straight jokes, told with a drumroll - ba-dum - to accompany the punchline. We could be down the end of the pier.
But Harry has achieved such fame because sometimes, after five minutes of jokes that have made you smile but not much else, he will shoot out a jewel of humour that gets that wonderful reflex laugh from the entire audience. "Have you ever noticed, when looking at ants through a magnifying glass on a hot sunny day, how often they spontaneously burst into flame?" Ba-dum (thanks to his back up band, the Caterers) - we all rock backwards in our seats. One man along the row is crying into his hands (there is something about Harry Hill that particularly seems to make men laugh). And as long as he keeps coming up with them, he'll probably be all right. When a comedian is funny, that is, obviously, a good thing.
At the Congress, Eastbourne (01323 412000), tomorrow, then touring.
