Having enjoyed a couple of drinks before Jason John Whitehead’s show, I became acutely aware within five minutes that I was desperate for a pee. Not wanting to commit the cardinal sin of shuffling across a comedian in full flow’s eye line, I found myself in the unenviable position of sitting through a stand up gig hoping that I wouldn’t be so amused that I might wet myself. In the main, I needn’t have worried. The premise of Whitehead’s show is his attempt to handle the fallout of the termination, in 2010, of a long-term relationship, navigating his way through the oft-utilised five stages: shock, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This leads him to reflect on how previous relationships have faltered, through the medium of the eponymous letters. This ploy, designed to lend his jokes some sort of theme, seems (like many other Fringe shows) contrived. Whitehead has attempted to shoehorn his jokes into the theme, and vice versa. This means he is obliged to place the somewhat tired comedy fare of the male/female dichotomy at the centre of his show.More than this though, Whitehead appeared to be suffering from the proverbial ‘bad day at the office’. Twice he fluffed the punchlines to jokes and while his crowd engagement in these unscripted moments is as good as anyone on the circuit (he’s still one of the most likeable comics out there), there was a distracted nature to the show, so much so that he admitted to feeling like he’d walked into ‘someone else’s audience’. Jokes about botched boob jobs and trips to Sea World played well but there was no need for me to rush home after the show and put my jeans in the wash.
