Jackson Voorhaar’s set details the things he loves and loathes. He tells us about his relationship-destroying passion for the South American prog titans The Mars Volta, his love for travel, his affection for his yoga instructor girlfriend. However - though he doesn’t mention it - it’s clear that his one true love is his hair. There is extensive flicking. Yes, his long mane of curly locks is worthy of admiration but, like the show itself - I grew to dislike it.
Voorhaar promised a set of swearing and filth. This he delivered - but the problem was that it just wasn’t funny. His discussion open relationships made me cringe rather than laugh and while Voorhaar thought we were silent because we were offended, we weren’t. We were silent because we weren’t amused. A formula quickly emerged: Voorhaar would tell a potentially offensive joke, apologise, - ‘I do occasionally take it too far, I’ll be honest’ - and then begin another. He also made extensive use of pickups linking back to jokes that weren’t quite funny enough the first time. After a while, I stopped listening.
It isn’t all bad - Voorhaar’s self-mocking cries of, ‘Pow! Fucking comedy joke, in your face’ made me laugh. Unfortunately this turned out to be a rare occurrence. Voorhaar concluded his set on a charmless note - ‘this is the worst pub I’ve ever seen in my fucking life’. It’s never convincing when a bad workman blames his tools, but particularly in this case; its setting - the Yurt at the Free Sisters - is one of the nicest things about this gig. I didn’t loathe Voorhaar’s set, but it’s not worth seeing. There are sex jokes aplenty, but not a lot of wit.
