With high expectations for the Scottish Comedian of the Year: Jaime Dalgleish, I eagerly awaited my night filled with side-splitting jokes and rip-roaring laughs. Unfortunately I made it home with my sides very much still intact and my throat not so much raw as rested.
It’s not that he wasn’t funny - his descriptions of his hometown of Glasgow made me smile as did his stories from his days at school - but he just didn’t really make me laugh. His jokes seemed to start off well but built anticipation for a hilarious punch line that didn’t come. Jamie had a great stage presence and was such a likable guy that I really wanted to enjoy his sketches more, but something was missing that left his performance a little lacking. He did have some great one-liners which were deserved more than the audience’s mild reactions and his comical improvisations inspired by the crowd became his one real success of the night.
I did enjoy his solution to the Eurozone crisis, which showed that this young comedian deserved the praise awarded to him in 2011. He had great comic timing and promising material which he performed with enthusiasm and energy to a difficult crowd. Perhaps I arrived with unfair expectations, but I did expect more and was disappointed as I left that night. A nice guy who is set to have a bright future, let’s hope it was just the subdued audience and the nerves which threw him off that night.
