BWW Reviews: CARL BARRON LIVE, Riverside Studios, May 11 2011
That stand-up comedy is the new rock-and-roll has been the accepted wisdom for longer than rock-and-roll was the old rock-and-roll. The West London public that rocked up to - well, if not quite roll in the aisles, then snigger in the stalls - appeared to contain only two people over 40: Carl Barron and me - so the kids are keen. Blame Newman and Baddiel or Peter Kay or Michael McIntyre, but comics touring theatres, even stadiums, are here to stay, though you can still go to a pub, heckle a smartarse compere and see half a dozen fifteen minute sets if you fancy a bit of old school.
Carl Barron, though a big star back home in Australia, is relatively unknown here, but word gets round the world at the speed of a tweet with a embedded youtube link, so he wasn't short of Brits amongst the Aussies in a full house. And, why not, for his is a very British show - lots of self-deprecation, plenty of wordplay and rather more stories than set-up-and-punch gags. It helps that his reference points are universal - the way parents treat kids, negotiating relationships, the perils of travel - and his accent is about as gentle as one could find amongst ex-roofers from Queensland. Indeed, his switching from the gentle upward lilt that always makes an Englishman think that a cousin from Down Under is posing a question, into posh Richmond (that's Richmond, London) yuppie-talk, is a highlight of the set.
At 80 minutes with no warm-up and no interval, it is a testament to Carl Barron's charm that he could hold an audience's attention with just a brief comic song to break up the observational tales. I'm sure I won't be the only visitor to Hammersmith this month expecting an snapping crocodile and instead finding a cuddly koala.
Carl Barron is at the Riverside Studios Hammersmith until 22 May.
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