A butler welcomes the audience at the start of Tom Rosenthal's show, separating us into haves and have-nots with a velvet rope. Rosenthal – son of TV sports reporter Jim; star of Channel 4's Friday Night Dinner – is here to talk about privilege: his own and ours. It's a bigger subject than he is able, or really tries, to chew. But in this promising set, at least the 23-year-old edges towards some provoking points. And there are several clever, bordering on clever-clever, gags from a comic who's never afraid to look cocksure in the name of humour.
The privilege theme comes and goes. We start with photos of Rosenthal at his posh school. He compares himself to Peaches Geldof and devotes 10 minutes to mocking his dad. It's not charming, but it's funny, as when Rosenthal Jnr targets Daddy's sports-coverage hyperbole. "I see what's happened, Dad, you've confused a catastrophe with an occurrence."
It's high-energy and, usually, precociously smart. Rosenthal's postmodern shtick encompasses a Stewart Lee parody, which feels practically sacrilegious, and a PowerPoint display on the comic conclusions to which logic can lead. He only occasionally gets lazy, with yet another routine about the 72 virgins in Islamic paradise, and a pointless attack on Andy Murray.
A closing insurrection from Leonard the butler suggests that, when the well-off start preaching classlessness, we'd best judge them by actions, not words. And that a monopoly on microphones is a form of privilege, too. It feels more like contrivance than reality; Rosenthal could act it better. But it does provide an arch twist to a show that hitherto celebrates privilege as much as critiques it. This impressive debut suggests Rosenthal, for all his advantages so far, is more than capable of paying his own way.
