James Smiley, Public School Twat is described as 'One young man. One Bill Hicksish black jacket. Hopefully more than one joke. Join James and his twisted observations on drugs, sex, the universe and matron in some very posh stand-up'. Maybe not the show for everyone, but certainly sounds like there might be something in it for others who have suffered James' cruel fate of having been born well off and sent to public school.
Most of the audience did look like they came from James' social bracket, so one might have thought that he would be on safe ground. However he fails to live up to his billing. His observations are twisted only in the sense of the contortions that he puts himself through in order to read his act from some crumpled bits of paper. You may think that this is an attempt to be endearing but it is soon revealed that he actually doesn't know his own material and is really reading from those bits of paper. Deeply insulting to a paying audience, even if half of them are your friends and former teachers.
James confesses he doesn't know his stuff as it written on it on the way to Edinburgh, having decided that his previous material 'wasn't suitable'. But does he really think his new material about Jim Davidson being a racist and not trusting women because they bleed for 7 days without dying is suitable? What was the earlier material? Knock knock jokes? Oh and James, a hint for future reference: half all Fringe tickets are sold to locals so there's a good chance that some are in the audience if you're going to slag off the Scots, you'd better be a hell of a lot more smart and funny in the way you do it.
Apologies if this seems harsh. In his favour, James does show signs that he might have nice delivery and style if he had any material. At the moment though the advice for James would be to get down to somewhere like The Stand Comedy Club and spend time watching and learning. Once you think you can see how to control an audience, maybe think about writing. Once you've written and you think you can perform, go do an open mic in a nasty 'working class' comedy club in front of those 'youths of the state'. If you still think you want to be a stand up, think about coming back to Edinburgh. Until then, avoid this show.
