Irritating stand up from an irritating man. Stuart Laws is like the kid at school who used to get picked on so now he just picks on everyone smaller than him. In this case; his audience. He moans and whines when people don’t find his jokes funny and creates an infuriating atmosphere. Of course much of this is intentional from the man who’s named his stand-up ‘
As a social experiment it might have more merits but even then there’s a lot of room for improvement. As stand up its horrible and weak and often far from enjoyable.
From an ill-conceived never-ending gag about a spider, to the infuriating talk about ‘our generation’ aggressively directed at the older victims in the audience; Stuart Laws’ When’s This Gonna Stop? (1hr Show) dulls and infuriates in equal doses. Laws comments on the 90’s and 00’s generation of young people to which he belongs, by examining stereotypical traits of a disaffected youth in what seems like an attempt to both simultaneously undermine and prove them. But the result is merely a clumsy shit-fest cluster-fuck centred around 9/11 and social media. There are plenty of things to despair of in the 21st century. But rather than comment on them and pastiche them in smart and witty ways like successful comedians do, Laws merely becomes an example of them and forces you to be a part of it, taking pictures of you with him on his irritating shit-ride. Then there’s irreverent jokes about German cookie hunting, but they’re just not very funny and they come at a point when your patience is already wearing desperately thin.
As a social experiment it might have more merits but even then there’s a lot of room for improvement. As stand up its horrible and weak and often far from enjoyable. Laws does get some laughs out of the audience, (thank god!) and he’s not entirely untalented but to sit through a whole hour of Stuart Laws’ stand-up is hard work. Some people may well like some of his social commentary as it festers in unattractive spores throughout the show and consumes you like a virus. But for this reviewer, the air outside and away has never felt so pure.
