Review – The Best of British

The website boasts that Best of British sold out 2007-2013, but tonight the upstairs bar is half full. To be fair, it’s a Thursday night and the comedians are competing with the football, something that they’re eager to remind the audience of. Four British comics take the stage, five if you include MC Dan Willis, who certainly includes himself. This, Willis reminds us, is the best value for money you’ll find in the whole festival.

Opening act Tom Binns, who you may know as guest star in the IT Crowd, does a skit he’s been doing for years. The premise revolves around hospital radio, something that has to be explained to an Australian audience. Binns’ style is perhaps better suited to a more scripted and produced medium, like radio. The snappy puns and morbid music jokes rely heavily on his accent, which is definitely British.

Scottish stand up Jeff Boyz does straightforward jokes that you can guess the punch lines to, but the physicality he brings to the tiny stage causes you to laugh anyway. He even looks a bit like Robert De Niro.

Gordon Southern is the stand out stand up of the night. His jokes are place based, common material for visiting comics, but Southern brings fun personal witticism to what could otherwise be dull and over done jokes. He’s not breaking new ground but he is dancing on the old.

Headliner Ian Incognito is an oddball. The absurd and very British character he embodies quickly falls into the swearing angry old cockney, a tired bit for an international audience. It starts snappily with a spark of originality and the use of props, though it is Incognito’s fourth gig of the night so that quickly gives way to outdated set ups and filthy asides.

Running every night until April 20th, Best of British is like a smorgasbord of British food; bland yet comfortingly familiar. It’s a show for the non-committal comedy festival-goer.