Comedy / ivo graham
Review: Ivo Graham, Wardrobe Theatre
The Wardrobe Theatre has moved. No longer skulking over the White Bear, it is neatly incorporated into the ubercool Old Market Assembly bar and restaurant. As a venue for comedy, it looks promising, with good sightlines and clear sound, although those with weaker bladders should be warned that you can’t sneak out without getting spotted – and potentially challenged – by the act.
The Wardrobe’s first comedy gig featured old Etonian Ivo Graham warming up for a run of London shows. It’s always harder to judge a warm-up gig, but one would have expected Graham to be more familiar with his material, considering he also delivered it at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe (as he told us repeatedly).
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The reference to Graham’s school is not a gratuitous one: he makes great play of having been to Eton, and the benefits and burdens of a privileged upbringing (“I’m my parents’ favourite child: I have the best table manners and the least piercings”). The gags can get a little rarified (“as a child, I thought a coked-up Latino was Julius Caesar’s designated driver”), and some of his subject matter is too thin for an extended routine.
How nice it is to have a girlfriend, being 25, wishing people Happy Birthday on Facebook – not topics that are going to set the comedy world on fire, even for five minutes in the middle of an extended set. As a result, some of the act feels overworked. However, he does some nice asides with posh aplomb in a style reminiscent of Miles Jupp.
Although the scripted material fails to take off completely, Graham is a highly adept ad libber. His strength quite clearly lies in wandering away from the path and into a random flurry of (often self-deprecating) dry wit. Underneath the aspiring comedian laboriously scribbling down gags in his flat, there is a very funny and spontaneous stand-up just waiting to break out.
Ivo Graham played the Wardrobe Theatre on Friday, January 15. For more Wardrobe lineups, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/whats-on