Gavin Webster – Webster’s Pictionary

Webster explains the show as a “plethora of different things” and it certainly is. He has some strong early gags about women, and spot on timing for the tattoo guns. His impressions are simple but entertaining, while when we get on to the main aspect of the show the “material randomiser” it isn’t clear whether this is set-up for the topics he likes, or genuinely random. The idea is that all comics cover the same set of subjects, and he can do any of those, so early topics include electrical appliances and one-man crime-waves.

A regular theme is the Edinburgh Fringe as a trade fair, and he uses videos to show himself auditioning for various different types of gig, from Montreal’s Nasty Show to the gay circuit, to Irish festivals. Toilet walls, education, ‘lifestyle gurus’, darts commentators, and Big Brother inmates being famous for no reason all get the Webster treatment.

The theme seems more of a distraction than a help, as it’s not Pictionary at all. If anything, it’s Wheel of Fortune. There is a board on stage, so it looks like we may get some artistic silliness, but it never happens. Perhaps the wheel never spun that way. But it leaves the Pictionary bit totally unrelated to the whole experience.

Not that that experience is a bad one. It’s an enjoyable hour, with one or two lines deserving the ultimate comic’s tribute “I wish I’d written that.” If he’s got enough of those, he should ditch the device and go with those, and his audience will be grateful.

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The Blurb

The Stand 2. 30th July – 24th August (not 11th). 22:15 (1h)

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