I must admit that I’ve never attended a stand-up gig where the audience is implored by the comic to perform the national anthem before commencing. I can’t say it is anything other than decidedly cringe-worthy. The reason for this innovation is that Jen Brister’s show is largely concerned with the idea of Britishness. Specifically Brister’s observations of this identity from her standpoint of being half Spanish. As this is a very commonplace theme in comedy, Brister was going to have to produce something particularly original to make it viable. This did not happen.Amongst the observations made by Brister was the insinuation that some of the well-to-do mothers at her posh prep school may have been racist. The assertion that some posh people are racist is particularly vacuous and would also be true without the word posh in it. We were also treated to the ground-breaking revelations that British people don’t like queuing or the French but they do like saying sorry excessively.Many of these observations are rooted in the musings of Brister’s mother. This impersonation, through the medium of a Spanish accent, by her daughter makes Brister senior seem to have about as much character depth as Fawlty Towers’ Manuel.Although Brister is confident on stage and her array of local and foreign accents was impressive, this does not make a good hour of comedy. I feel compelled to give it two stars because there was a certain middle-aged section of the audience who, inexplicably, laughed consistently throughout. Perhaps this was because they found Brister’s assessment of pornography to be taboo-shatteringly edgy. It wasn’t. To be fair though, their cultural diet probably consists, almost exclusively, of Miranda and Midsomer Murders.
