MAYBE the beard is a signifier. It’s a little wilder than usual, a little more unkempt, a little less groomed. Words you would not normally associate with Simon Evans.
And it’s the same with the show. Perhaps it was just the night I caught him on. Maybe it’s because Paul Sinha was in the audience. But this was a looser, slightly more ragged hour of comedy from Evans, someone normally so polished, than usual. That said, it was no less funny.
Partly that was because at times in this meandering show he reverted to some of his greatest hits (nothing wrong with that when they’re this funny). Partly because in the sections he devoted to growing older and the failings that come with it in the hand luggage he was very droll on the notion of senior moments (I accept that this might have especially hit home with me because I am also of a similar vintage. And while you’re here, why did I come up the stairs exactly, do you know?)
I did wonder at points if the whole show was in its way a meta take on this very theme, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. Because Evans, kempt or unkempt, on point or wandering widely off it, is entertaining company.
Yes, he’s curmudgeonly now and then, even spiky at times. But it’s all brought to bear on the purpose of the evening which is to make his audience laugh
And this he does whether he’s joking about cats or Aristotle or Nicola Sturgeon.
By the end, he is celebrating his children, for decades the source of many of his routines, and he’s offering us a show of fatherly love with genuine sincerity. It’s really rather sweet.
Simon Evans: Have We Met? Assembly Rooms (Bijou)
19:00
until August 27 (except August 14)
