"There's going to be lots of extras on this DVD," says Patrick Monahan. He's not kidding: this is the gig that never ends. The London date of the live tour of the TV standup contest was being filmed here for a Christmas DVD; the audience was shepherded forwards to fill the several empty seats. Dubbed the "X Factor of comedy", this was watched by few – and the DVD will need judicious editing if it is to fare any better. Monahan – who won the televised contest – long overstays his welcome, eking out an adequate 40-minute set to well over one-and-a-half hours.
Initially, he gets by on enthusiasm and charm. He doesn't do (many) jokes; his stories meander and peter out at so-so punchlines. But they have smiley, garrulous Monahan as their protagonist, butting in on strangers' conversations, eating cherry bakewells while others take drugs – and that raises plenty of smiles, if few laughs. But in the last half-hour, the thinness of the material is harder to conceal. Audience members are dragooned on stage and made to dance and make sexy faces, in a sequence that's padded out with Monahan's repetitive exposition. This was less Show Me the Funny, more Show Me the Exit.
Earlier, runners-up Dan Mitchell and Tiffany Stevenson pitched in tighter 20-minute sets – the latter's being the more accomplished. Stevenson presents herself in a familiar way: she starts with a gag about her "muffin top" and stays mouthy, cynical and sexually frank. But she inhabits the archetype with confidence, and isn't short of good gags – about Austria, abortion and a recent mice infestation at her north London home. She left us wanting more; Monahan left me wanting much less.
