"I don't want to exclude people tonight," Marc Lottering begs his fans, "so please stop it." But there's just no stopping the sizeable ex-pat contingent in Lottering's first night Soho crowd. They bray with laughter at the Cape Town comic's every punchline, many of which are in Afrikaans. They know him as a TV celebrity from home, and find him funny before he even opens his mouth.
For the Brits in the crowd, this viewer included, it's like being sober at a party where everyone else is steaming.
We were given fair warning: the publicity promises "locally flavoured comedy". But what's disappointing about Lottering is how little effort he makes to embrace those to whom his references aren't immediately familiar.
In principle, I'm keen to hear comic perspectives from a wide range of cultures. But Lottering almost goes out of his way to ostracise non-South Africans, whom (judging by the front row's laughter) he ridicules in Afrikaans at every opportunity.
His material is often culturally specific too - but only sometimes interesting. The show is ostensibly themed around a family photo album. I liked Lottering's recollections of the times he and his brother spent in the Cape Town museum gawping at African tribal exhibits.
"They're your heritage," says the attendant. "Rubbish," says Lottering's mum. "We're German."
Likewise, Lottering animates the story of his recent arrest for drink-driving with infectiously foolish impersonations of the truck-tow man at the scene of the crime.
But much of the observational material here feels dated, be it Lottering's teenage self miming to Michael Jackson in the bedroom mirror, or (more problematically) his mild stereotyping of Jews and gays. Neither does the photo motif amount to much. Lottering simply shows us some unprepossessing slides on which he hangs familiar reflections on wedding ceremonies and 1980s fashion. Perhaps we should be grateful after all that half of his material is, to English ears, incomprehensible.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
