As humble a turnout as it was, Paul Revill was very grateful and welcomed us warmly. However, considering the originally planned double-act show had to be changed at the last minute, it was a respectable crowd.
Revill starts off the show with a very tried and cringe-worthy opening which I felt was out of place in such an intimate crowd and obscure show – if anything it came across a little desperate. I felt he should have relied more on his energetic and jovial disposition to win the crowd.
The concept of the show is simple enough. He paints us a picture of different scenarios of past comical situations and misadventures that he had found himself in, some out of his own doing and some just pure bad luck. At the end of each anecdote, Revill invites the audience to judge whether his actions taken during the story deserves sympathy or not.
Most of his material is fairly amateur, though it can be sometimes quite funny. Some of the jokes had great one liners but for the most part the set felt like an extended version of a new comedian doing a spot at an open mic night.
For me, the only redeeming joke of the show was his final story involving “condom shenanigans”. It had a great arc and was well-paced with a hilarious ending – such a shame his other stories didn’t have this same structure.
This is a far from polished show; overall, it lacked structure and comedic finesse. If you have forty minutes to spare and you think someone who openly talks about how he essentially fails at life is funny, this would be a good buffer in between shows.
