Sam Simmons takes absurd comedy to new extremes in his latest offering All About the Weather. Following his Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination last year, Simmons’ new show has more of a narrative feel, telling the story of his life with the aid of a pre-recorded narrator referred to as the weatherman.
Once again, Simmons presents a bizarre string of non-sequiturs and unexplained jokes, but this time it is all strung together with a very rough underlying plot. The story generally follows Simmons as he goes about his mundane life, taking the same bus to work everyday, going about his boring job and coming back home where he gets frustrated after failed attempts at putting together an IKEA coffee table. The pull of the story comes in his attempts to spark a relationship with his ‘bus crush’ - a hapless member of the audience - which produces a number of hilarious results. Perhaps the best element of the show is the way Simmons attempts to argue with his narrator, who he is unable to disobey as what’s being narrated is his story.
Simmons’ high energy performance is nothing short of mind-boggling, as the audience struggles to keep up with his anything-goes imagination. Though some of the jokes miss the mark by taking things too far, as a whole Simmons has created a tour-de-force that guarantees to challenge your preconception of comedy. Certain scenes will have you splitting at the sides, whilst at the same time struggling to comprehend what exactly is going on. For anyone who likes to explore the limits of stand-up, All About the Weather is a definite must.
