With five minutes or so of light-hearted banter at the top the show, Simon Caine successfully had the audience not only relaxed, but ripe with anticipation. Unfortunately, despite the comic’s best efforts, this was never fully satisfied.
There’s a lot of promise here but a bit more practice on both the writing and delivery fronts is most definitely needed.
Caine’s bumbling style was initially charming rather than irritating. However this ‘typical awkward-guy’ delivery, started wearing a bit thin and more often than not, the ‘ooops-I-made-a-mistake-but-it’s-actually-intentional’ bits came off as exceedingly laboured.
There was an excellent piece about society’s obsession with watching videos of cats on YouTube - which I dare say a fair few members of the audience, including myself, could relate to. There were also a number of interesting and amusing observations on a range of subjects, from children’s toys to London life.
Caine managed to make light of the fact that we were all seated in the corner of an Indian restaurant which piped its traditional music into the room for the entire show, creating an atmosphere that was unusual but not unpleasant. The early audience interaction provided a running joke that appealed to everybody, however this wasn’t enough to make the show anything other than just okay. There’s a lot of promise here but a bit more practice on both the writing and delivery fronts is most definitely needed.
