Arts > Comedy

Sean Hughes @ Norwich Playhouse

18/09/15

Much as I love both Bill Bailey and Noel Fielding, the classic years of the BBC quiz show Never Mind The Buzzcocks for me were always those with blokey-matey  Phil Jupitus vying with sharp-tongued Sean Hughes as team captains. It comes as a sobering reminder that Hughes actually left the show thirteen years ago in 2002. Tonight he is appearing in his new one-man show at Norwich's Playhouse, described as an examination of  the brain's constant conflict between common sense and mumbo jumbo, and how mumbo jumbo always seems to gain the upper hand.

Hughes certainly has me laughing for the first ten minutes as he self-deprecatingly shares the truths about inhabiting a body which is fast approaching fifty years old. That section of the audience that, like me, has already passed this milestone are both sympathetic and empathetic. The passage through adulthood is described as a journey that starts with anticipation, but ends in disappointment. And, for those who remain single, a lonely disappointment.

From that moment on I am unsure whether I am supposed to feel sorry for Hughes, or celebrate his 'maverick' lifestyle. In the first half of the show he frequently touches on politics, but his scattergun approach sometimes misses the target, and at times leaves us slightly uncomfortable in our seats. When he is more in consensus with the audience he still struggles to extract applause, and so on we move to something else. The same thing tends to happen in the second half when he covers religion.

The truth is, Hughes is at his best when he muses on his passage from young man to mid-life crisis and beyond. He is not yet the 'grumpy old man', although his idea of leaving his house to Shelter 'just to annoy the neighbours' has a touch of Victor Meldrew about it. Like most of us he has a love-hate relationship with his family and friends, and we can all identify with the trials of having Mum to stay. His notion that it is pointless going to see a band live when you have the CD and a sofa at home contrasts bleakly with his wonderful anecdote of being serenaded as the sun rose by Robert Smith of The Cure on mandolin.

Leave the politics and religion to the likes of Frankie Boyle. Cheap gags at the expense of Mo Farah, Jimmy Carr and Cliff Richard are not as entertaining as his observations on inhabiting a failing body. Let me laugh with you, Sean, not at you or at others.

6/10