“Fifteen years I’ve been doing … whatever this is!” Anglo-Canadian comic Tony Law is one of standup’s premier goons, heroically committed to nonsense, knight errant of the dizzy non-sequitur. Like any other comic style, that requires craft. But Law pretends otherwise – that it’s slapdash, that he’s only doing it because he can’t do proper comedy, that his gibberish nonplusses even himself. But that approach can be counterproductive. To make inconsequential material funny is hard enough without – as Law does here – constantly disowning it or drawing attention to its flimsy quality.
It would matter less if his nonsense were inspired – but at this performance, inspiration comes only in flashes. I loved the device whereby Law recognises “old buddies” in the audience, with whom he shares matey reminiscences about serving together in the Trojan war, say, or in Genghis Khan’s hordes. Dramatising the plight of planet Earth as a mildly menacing beach-ball game with a stooge from the audience is pleasingly loopy. But much of the flailing randomness doesn’t ignite, including a skit in which he conceals his supposed fear of the audience behind bad trombone playing.
The most successful section comes when Law does what he claims he can’t do – tells a true(ish) story from his own life, about the death of his beloved sausage dog. OK, so biographical anecdotes are square compared to the beardy comic’s pop-eyed hepcat shtick. But this almost-moving tale of a mutt’s final moments, peppered with naive-profound interjections from his five-year-old twins, grounds Law’s tomfoolery, his posturing and his cartoonish voices. Here, all that nonsense is deployed to contrast Law against his plain-dealing kids, bolstering the storytelling. It’s an improvement, when the freaky free-associating becomes a means to an end rather than a somewhat aimless end in itself.
Until Jan 17. Box office: 020-7478 0100. More details: sohotheatre.com
