Nick Mohammed Presents The Best and Worst or Mr Swallow
Playhouse
I will admit, I did grab these tickets purely because I know of Nick Mohammed from his performance as ‘Nate the Great’ in Ted Lasso… and yes, he did point this out in the first five minutes of the show, after he wheeled onto the stage in a fabulous pair of rollerskates.
But firstly, we were treated to a hilarious support set from Tessa Coates, whose round of stories about sex-but-not-sex jokes, Faberge eggs, A-Level Russian, the Brighton Half Marathon and face painting perfectly set us up for the evening. After a brief intermission, Mr Swallow appeared!
The mathematical magician instantly ushered us into a criticism of the 12 Days of Christmas’ maths and a round of the numbers game, a flashback from his previous appearances on 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown. This was my first proper comedy show, so as an audience member, of course I had to join in (I added the number 82 to the board!). Chaos was also a key element of this show, and even before we got properly into the numbers game, we were led into the first of many hilarious tangents; this one being an explanation of the plot of the hit musical, Les Mis…
The rest of the show was focused on memory and numbers, which felt oddly like a university lecture on psychology and maths, but in the best way possible. The audience interaction was healthy and not too overbearing. It was mainly people in the front rows who got asked to contribute, including one person who came up on stage to assist with Swallow’s memory test that involved a pack of cards.
Nearing the end of the show, we were treated to Swallows’ famous rendition of the Jurassic Park theme tune; another nice little callback to his time on Cats does Countdown. The main highlight, though, was the build up to the final joke of the night, which included a highly specific set of numbers and some more callbacks, this time to previous parts of the show. The payoff was incredibly well done and the thunderous round of applause after confirmed it. After departing the stage, Mohammed appeared once again, not as Swallow, not as himself, but as a conductor of an incredibly strange orchestra. Quite beautiful, really…
After one final bow, he walked off to East 17’s Stay Another Day. What a night!
The Very Best and Worst of Mr Swallow is on tour until the 21st of May.
