Comedy / james acaster
Review: James Acaster, The Lantern
About two-thirds of the way through James Acaster’s lovingly-crafted show, he produces a diagram of the folded top of a packing box. It’s folded in that deeply satisfying way that means “every flap is the top flap,” making it both an example of a mathematical principle laid down by Archimedes and also “hands down the best part of my divorce.”
Deeply nerdy, brilliantly thought-out and with an unexpected flash of pathos, this wee skit is Acaster’s show in microcosm, and that folded cardboard construction serves as a perfect metaphor for a show that folds in on itself several times without once disappearing up any sort of orifice. There are more overlapping callbacks in this show than in any this reviewer can remember – but Acaster’s geeky, pedantic, ultimately very loveable persona shines through at every turn.
The overall narrative is that Acaster is in fact Pat Springleaf, an undercover cop sent to bring down a drug gang that deals to comedians. In fact, the setup is a prop on which to hang some fantastically OCD observational comedy and some lovely flights of fancy involving conga lines and crisp sandwiches, as well as a pleasingly gauche way of exploring the identity crisis that Acaster (perhaps) felt in real life during the breakdown of a relationship earlier this year.
This is a show with few punchlines but plenty of delighted, rippling laughter as parts of Acaster’s inner world resonate with different punters at different times. Little has changed since I saw the show in Edinburgh three months ago, apart from the odd callback to Stuart Laws’ equally geeky, though somewhat less well-defined warm-up set in the first half (Laws’ main achievement is to popularise the unlikely catchphrase “That’s a gibbon!”, to the extent that punters call it out several times throughout both sets).
But if anything, the show is even more enjoyable once you know where Acaster is taking you. The pathos, too, works better the second time round, and if it’s true that some punters in the front row were a little dewy-eyed towards the end of the set, well, they weren’t alone. This is the work of an engaging and supple comic mind at the top of his game.
James Acaster played The Lantern, Colston Hall on Friday, 28 November.
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