Beccy Huxtable: Live and Loose

Scott Mills’ assistant producer Beccy Huxtable took to the stage last night in the penultimate performance in a series of four one-man shows Radio 1 have brought to Edinburgh this year. Following in the unexpectedly comic footsteps of The One That Doesn’t Speak on Monday night, and Nick Grimshaw on Tuesday, Beccy’s take on this office-challenge was to put on a soundalike, scriptalike tribute act of five comedians. It’s obvious Beccy has spent a lot of time with the DVDs of Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, Jimmy Carr, Harry Hill and Al Murray. Out of the three Radio 1 acts so far, she has clearly worked the hardest on this task, and her effort paid off. Given the evidence of the trials that have been broadcast on the Scott Mills show, most in the audience were expecting a train wreck. We needn’t have worried. Beccy has funny bones. There was plenty of corpsing, off-script gaffs and cock-ups that would have thrown most off their game, but Beccy had the audience completely on her side from start to finish. Ad-libs and characterisations proved that Beccy could not only pull off an impersonation, but is an original comic in her own right. The patter off-stage while changing was sometimes as hilarious as when she was bouncing around the stage at full pace. This was impressive, given it’s not her day job.So, Beccy has worked the hardest; Nick had the most polished performance but The One Who Doesn’t Speak still has the funniest show. Can Scott Mills trump them all? We’ll know by tomorrow.