If Russell Kane's theory is correct, I shouldn't praise his show too highly, because you'll think he's "a wanker". The show is called Gaping Flaws, and it reprises well-rehearsed arguments about the Brits' taste for imperfection. Compliments make us panic. We play down our success. We don't fancy babes and beefcakes, because to us, "flaws prove the reality of the humanity". It's a measure of the success of this show - nominated for an if.comedy award at last year's Edinburgh Fringe - that Kane makes us think afresh about why deprecation is our lingua Britannica.
In Kane's case, it comes down to his dad. Kane père is "the silverback of all that is negative", the classic emotionally illiterate British parent, who bolts to his shed when he hears his son has been awarded first-class honours, to "express his pride in private". There's nothing glib about this character sketch; Kane visibly bristles at his father's more brutal excesses. Dad's influence, and that of the white working-class world in which Kane grew up, is all over this depiction of Britain, where grandparents take pride in young Russell's alcoholic stupor, white-van men abuse joggers, and pensioners are "so miserable they look like they're going to turn into diamonds".
Neat phrase, that. Kane is full of them; he wears his erudition lightly, but unashamedly. He's also a wonderfully animated comic, whose delivery chops between observation and goofy role-play; between talking about cheese, and acting it. Moment by moment, his chirpy geezer shtick is entertaining enough to overlook the dissipating argument, and the fact that Kane finally has few insights to bring to our culture of failure. But that flaw isn't gaping, and the show is otherwise so smart and successful, it is practically, well, American. His son is good - another stint in the shed beckons for Kane senior.
