‘I realise that this show is me complaining a lot,” says Josh Widdicombe, “but that is what my job is.” I’m not sure “complaining” quite covers the possibilities of standup comedy. But it accounts for most of what Widdicombe does on stage. And it limits him: there are points in his touring show Bit Much when the peevishness feels mechanical, more affectation than authentic. A change of tone would be welcome. But then again, he does peevishness so very well. The show may be short on variety, but it’s not short on laughs.
None of them are Widdicombe’s: he raises barely a ghost of a smile throughout. Deadpan isn’t the word, his protests – at vegetable delivery boxes, advent calendars, canapes – are too agitated for that. His voice escalates, higher and squeakier, with his alarm. But the unflickering expression – part sternly disapproving, part stupefied at the world’s illogic – is part of the joke, too.
His gaze never elevates above the everyday, as driving tests, Deliveroo and – now he’s a dad – baby monitors are given the observational comedy treatment. It’s always a notch above “have you ever noticed …?”, and at his best, The Last Leg man develops his irritation with the mundane into arresting visions, like the 2D baby detected by the 3D scan or the mass exodus from an overpopulated WhatsApp group, “like when the Berlin Wall came down.” One lovely routine on the opening hours of his local park makes not just hay but whole haystacks with the idea of “dusk”, while wielding the word itself, over and over, like the most ticklish of comic instruments.
There are big laughs, too, in his closing set-piece on weddings. But the returns – and the credibility – diminish as we realise the routine will work through every single wedding-day convention, expressing equal vexation at all of them. It’s not the only instance where Widdicombe’s exaggerated dismay feels too much like a professional requirement. But if now and then he’s going through the motions, well, they’re always very funny motions to go through.
At Ulster Hall, Belfast, on 19 October and Dublin Olympia on 20 October. Then touring.
