Jon Richardson is a perfectionist, to a fault. So terrified is he of failure that he fights shy of relationships – too much potential for disappointment – and finds otherwise pleasant experiences ruined by the slightest flaw. Life is to be lived with obsessive caution. Risk must be avoided. This is the stuff of a distinctive comic personality, and the strength of the Lancastrian standup's show is that he communicates a vivid sense of this pernickety worldview.
If the show doesn't generate the comic heat of, say, Rhod Gilbert's – another exponent of the "petty fury" brand of standup – it may be because Richardson is philosophical about his foibles. His sang remains froid: he "gave up on the world this year", he tells us equably, and is happy to be single. It's also because the joke count isn't as high. Richardson deals in amusing anecdotes and opinions, but not in punchlines. The stories – pretending to be cockney in the back of a London cab; being congratulated in a restaurant on his pronunciation of the word "bruschetta" – are not constructed or delivered to be much more than likable barroom banter.
There are exceptions. The best is Richardson's account of a recent first date, for which, with uncharacteristic abandon, he agreed to go ice-skating. The sight of him trying to impress while clinging to the side of the rink will amuse anyone who has ever looked a fool while trying to be cool; the more so when, losing his balance, he lunges inappropriately at his girlfriend. The mime, so embarrassingly recognisable, bypasses Richardson's chirpy delivery.
Elsewhere, his tales of fastidiousness are genial, but never so in-your-face. They have the ring of truth, but at the expense of the exaggeration, passion or disproportion that might lead to bigger laughs.
