"Don't get discouraged," Marc Maron counsels, "there's a lot of big laughs just around the corner." In fact, there are big laughs throughout his set, but it wouldn't do for Maron to be caught admitting it. Self-criticism is his thing: he is one of the "neurotic Jews whining" (his words) on whom standup was built. In this London show, the American comic and podcaster proves that there's life left in that old formula. Fretful solipsism and misanthropy may cost a lot in therapy, but their comic value is limitless.
This is not, as Maron would be the first to point out, a show with momentum. He enjoys the awkward silences too much. He'd rather be picking holes in his own jokes, or drawing attention to the half-empty room, than indulging in anything so phoney as structure. All the more surprising, then, that one finds oneself blurting out big laughs at Maron's indiscriminate sideswipes. Sometimes these are directed away from himself: I loved his riff on Judgment Day, and the pleasure he'll take in seeing "Christians shooting up into the sky". And his reflections on Scotland. "Where are all the black people?" Dismayed pause. "Is that what haggis is?"
But most of the humour here is self-reflexive. The jokes are about Maron's midlife angst, or about the world seen through a fretful lens. There's funny material about his relationships with women who have father issues, his mother's response when he's feeling suicidal, and the "sad, tired demon" at his shoulder who once led him astray, and now leads him to the Ben & Jerry's carton. Authentic or otherwise, there's an impression of honesty here, and astringent relish of the fact that relentless self-questioning usually throws up some pretty galling answers.
