Standup was once the art of telling jokes. Now, it's as likely to be the art of doing something improbable, and reporting back. Dave Gorman usually gets credit – or blame – for this, but Tim FitzHigham's been doing it almost as long, and to greater extremes. This perennial fringe gadfly holds the world record for rowing across the Channel in a Victorian bathtub, and now sets out to re-enact the weirdest wagers in history.
The laughs derive more from the stunts themselves than FitzHigham's account of them; the show might work better on TV, where we could watch his daft activities directly. But this remains a lively hour of fun with this gentleman eccentric. The challenges here are tailor-made for FitzHigham's raffish, aristocratic, lusciously bewhiskered stage persona. These are wagers struck between 18th-century society gents, dissipating their time and money in pursuit of idle pleasure. Might a man beat a horse in a 100m race? FitzHigham gives it a go. Might a cheeseboard be rolled four miles through Suffolk with less than 100 shoves? FitzHigham tries, and has the injuries to prove it. His adventures are relayed to us on video clips – and his unflappable pluck in the face of impossible (or at least ridiculous) odds seldom fails to amuse.
Linking the clips, FitzHigham narrates his gambling history with wild-eyed enthusiasm. A belated bid to give the show a political dimension, by citing the "stick or twist" aspect of global finance, is strained. And celebrity endorsements from the likes of Top Gear host Richard Hammond look more like name-dropping than comedy. FitzHigham, after all, is quite enough personality for one show, and the lengths he goes in pursuit of meaningless achievement are charmingly comic-heroic.
