As so often with comedy, the technical hitches got the biggest laughs. The preview of Les Keen's one-man show All at Sea, the producer explained, was the first time she'd actually seen the whole thing; just to get us into the spirit of things, Keen added later, he'd specially flooded the men's toilets.
It's true - men were coming out of the loo with their trousers rolled up to their knees; but it would have taken more than a bit of paddling to get us going. Keen starts off with a brilliant idea for his show, and then forgets all about it.
It is the tale of Donald Crowhurst, who set off to sail single-handed around the world carrying no proper equipment ("Bread and potatoes are all I've got to eat," says Keen dejectedly. "It'll be toast again, then.") - a classic British Eddie-the-Eagle/Captain Scott-and-his-huskies story. Crowhurst had never sailed before, had no idea what he was doing, and ended up - after falsifying his radio reports and spending a year at sea by himself - disappearing completely in July 1969. In other words, he was the kind of man to whom we usually build monuments.
Having found this anthem to the Great British spirit, does Keen use him to reflect on the doomed amateur, or the madness of isolation, or the searing nobility of the human spirit? Um, no. Instead, he takes up residence behind a table with two cardboard portholes stuck to it and spins a long, drifting series of jokes that don't build on each other or reveal very much about anything at all.
To be fair, some of the jokes are very funny, and Keen is a mine of useless information. Did you know, for example, that you need a minimum of five fish to make up a shoal? ("What happens if one dies?" he asks with concern. "Suddenly you're just four fish.") But I was rather relieved when Keen/Crowhurst got hit by a steamer and died.
At the Hen & Chickens, London N1 (0171- 704 2001), tomorrow and Wednesday
Till August 14. Box-office: 0181-743 3388
