You go into Gavin Webster’s show expecting exactly what it says on the tin, but you leave with something more intelligent and interesting than he gives himself credit for. Yes, there’s shouting and swearing, but Webster also draws on a wealth of unique material to craft biting observations and clever quips. He goes after a range of worthy targets at the start, including Scottish “cuisine, and people “who state the bleeding obvious”. He even throws in a well-crafted aside about the failed Scottish colony of New Caledonia. He makes some seriously funny observations and whatever he throws his scathing Geordie wit at seems to turn to gold.
Towards the middle of his show, Webster turns inward to the world of stand-up comedy; he tells tales of people comparing watching his show to self-harm and takes those absurd criticisms to their logical extremes to hilarious effect. Another segment concerning American comics posing as “dangerous” and telling insipid “your mum” jokes allows him to paint a brilliant dichotomy between a methodist and a prostitute. A joke about failing to remember the acronym for LGBT is slightly boring, but he manages to take it in an unexpected direction. Another segment comparing Dad’s Army and Loose Women, feels quite tangential and the point he attempts to make becomes obscured.
Apart from that, however, Webster’s loud, biting and intelligent satire of popular culture is a riot, and his emphatic cadence does not allow you to divert your attention. Right at the end of his hour, Webster launches off on an extended dialogue about the sanitisation of football and “industrial language,” resulting in a side-splittingly hilarious pay-off which is worth the entry fee alone.
Gavin Webster: An Hour of Swearing and Shouting, 17:30, The Stand until August 25
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/gavin-webster-an-hour-of-swearing-and-shouting
