At one point in this show, Russell Howard – in one of his many comedy voices – upbraids himself for meandering off-script: "This is big-room stuff," he urges himself, "and you've got to keep that shit rolling." Whatever else he does tonight, he certainly keeps it rolling. He shouts, he jumps around, he roleplays dogs, his mum and talking vaginas, he shouts some more. The material is densely packed with jokes – or at least, funny tones of voice. It's a clinically engineered two hours of comedy, let down only by Howard's complete lack of anything interesting to say.
It's getting more incongruous the older he gets. He's 33 now, and a large chunk of the set is about willies and jolly non-consensual sex. Here's his excitable brother displaying his penis, over and again. And isn't it funny when naked men dance and their willies swing around? Here's Howard miming being sodomised by a far-right Twitter troll, or speculating that "Han Solo could have abused Chewbacca and no one would have known" because the latter can't speak. There's painfully more where that came from, but Howard gives it more oomph than it merits, embroidering the poo punchlines and talk of Miley Cyrus's "flaps" with much eye-popping and microphone abuse.
Occasionally, we glimpse actual opinions about the world. There's a rant against the EDL ("what England are they defending?"), which devolves into a rape dumbshow. Later, Howard sings a self-penned atheist hymn – before backtracking from this rationalist commitment by confessing he's superstitious about magpies. Elsewhere, he expresses his preference for eccentrics over "beige pricks" – but surely all this fence-sitting, this preference for uncontroversial jokes about fanny farts, equals beige comedy? There's no denying Howard's technical mastery, nor the attractiveness of his enthusiasm for life. But it's time to give all that willy talk the snip.
• Until 17 April. Box office: 0845 401 5034. Venue: Royal Albert Hall. Then tour resumes in August.
• Did you catch this show – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #gdnreview
