Pete Cain, London’s wicked working class hero brings his manifesto for the future of the United Kingdom to the Assembly Rooms, in an attempt to solve each of his audience member’s problems through his radical, politically incorrect propositions. Unfortunately Cain, a ‘recovering (from last night) alcoholic’, manages to advocate racism, anti-monarchism, the legalisation of drugs, misogyny and authoritarianism in a set more suited to a Working Men’s Club in Millwall.
Starting in a very calm and accommodating manner, Pete Cain collects the issues and irks of his audience, with a warm demeanour. The rest of his set is an attack on the politics and government structure of the United Kingdom and a series of cheap, ignorant solutions for several world problems. Including banning burkas in order to ‘liberate women’ and the sale of the Queen because ‘tourists like her’, Cain’s comments are controversial, though far from funny. A lot are just statements and sadly rarely contain any redeeming irony or sarcasm.
Cain uses weak statistics to back up ill logic. Tackling religion, he believes he is going to create ‘Cathinbujewbudisratisfarianism’, a cocktail of all of the best points of world religion. His anecdotes that come out of this decree though are his belief that he can solve all Middle Eastern issues by blanketing the area with bacon sandwiches. Cain then goes on to announce that he’d like to keep the religion that allows you to have up to four wives, though identifies this as probably being the main reason why Muslim men turn to jihad.
Cain’s poem about the C word, a tool he uses to ‘desensitise’ his audience to his overuse of the swear word is tedious, immature and feels like it could have been written by a fourteen year old on a school playground. Cain’s legalisation of drugs, but punishment for overuse or becoming a ‘c*nt on drugs’ caps off a poor show, with Cain alluding to the reintroduction of Capital Punishment for people who ‘act like a c*nt’. His love for this word is in no way charming.
Cain does get a few cheap laughs from his audience, though finishes by allowing one audience member a free pass back into his new country because of her ‘nice ‘t**s’ You would expect more from a seemingly seasoned veteran of the circuit. I don’t see why distasteful, sincere ignorance and childish swearing should make a highly rated comedy routine.
