GLenn Moore has a device he sends to his new show, to maintain a balance between silence and underwhelm. He has two notebooks, one is placed on each side of the stage. If a joke goes bad, he’ll go to the book containing his best material, and win the audience with one of the classic gags. And if the crowd tonight is starting to love his show, he will read from another book, which contains the material he is ashamed of.
Slim Chance, you can imagine, Moore’s audience not finding him funny: this is one of the best business jokes writers. And please sir, Glenn I have some Moore? is another compendium of crackers from 36 years old. They were strung around the episodic tales of a drive through the Death Valley he took, years ago, with his two cousins. They make mistakes, lost, and the acrimony begins, with a story designed to show low self -esteem of the host and the lack of assertiveness.
All of this is well, until it goes. But Moore is not a comedian inherently affiliate, or in making us a word he says. The material can be self-deprecating, but the delivery remains official. It is repeatedly clear that Moore preceded the Gagong in developing a good faith in relation to his listener-and as a result of the Death Valley story, and in fact the device of the two books, was difficult to make at the cost of the face. (Moore’s decisions to read from one or the other book, as if based on the audience’s reaction, felt completely unreasonable.)
Is there something that? We came to comedy shows to laugh, and Moore didn’t sit in front of that. Puns, Visual Puns, Idioms Upended, Arresting Observations – The Croydon Men is a grandfather soup du jour“) In his belter in Mick Jagger’s erotic credit. Maybe he doesn’t have an onstage demeanor to sell them as genially as possible, but the quality, quantity and various jokes here will not be valued.
At Soho Theater, London, 8-13 September, then travel
