Reginald D Hunter begins with an apology to audiences who know him only from TV: his stage work, he warns, is hot to handle. I’m not sure this current set, compelling though it is, really delivers on that self-mythologising. But it’s worth seeing, because Hunter is a charismatic and interesting comedian, who at his best – there are examples tonight – has a refreshing capacity for honest critical thinking about himself and the world. But the bits Hunter advertises as outspoken are often conventional, propagating old-fashioned attitudes about women and a nostalgia for the disciplinarian attitudes that governed his deep south childhood.
The set has no theme; in fact, Hunter’s musings can be hard to follow. Some sequences – including the one where he asks the audience a question concerning their marital scruples – don’t always connect with the rest of the show. Others, such as his sister’s homily about the difference between power and authority, left me grasping for the slightest sense of what they’re on about.
The happy flipside is that Hunter’s mercurial logic can lead him into territory other comics don’t occupy. OK, so the self-righteousness can grate. More often, he is emotionally frank about his life and loves in a way that is always engaging and sometimes comical. He throws curveballs. There is a wonderfully charged moment when he quizzes an audience member about his Conservative politics. And there are strong set pieces about dressing as a confederate general at an American civil war re-enactment, and being asked to discuss racism on a Russian radio show.
It’s a shame his non-doctrinaire thinking about race doesn’t transfer to gender. In Hunter’s worldview, women express themselves mainly through hysteria and who they sleep with. The complaints about his tax bill also wear thin. It’s a strange mix: inconsistently funny and insightful, even as the force of personality never wavers.
• At the Hexagon, Reading, 20 May. Box office: 0118-960 6060. At Royal and Derngate, Northampton, on 21 May. Box office: 01604 624 811. Then touring.
