‘I used to be massive,’ joked 66-year-old comedy legend as he peered over to a few empty seats at his .
Reflecting on his three-decade career, Frank’s hour of laughs is exactly what punters – many of whom were in their sixties – expected.
He drops the C-bomb quite early on and reflects later that might’ve been a mistake. But lubed up within a few minutes of easy professionalism, Frank’s audience was ready for the dirt to fly – so he needn’t have worried.
In the second half of his set, which was a sort of retrospective of his finest (or not so) moments throughout the years, the dirt stuck to the walls alright.
A tale of Frank’s royal run-in while accepting his MBE was full of snort-worthy moments, save one unnecessary joke about ’s weight which – on a quick glance around – didn’t impress the younger members of the audience, but made his older admirers cackle with untethered laughter.
Frank hints he’s beyond the point of caring about being, ahem, ‘woke’. He’s far too intelligent than to totally write it off, but gives a slightly nuanced approach to the argument.
He dubs public speaking a ‘tense affair’ nowadays, but caveated this by saying that’s not always a bad thing. The comic’s nut-grabbing (literally) rendition of the heady old days of stand-up when the shows were wilder than a Rolling Stones concert was giggle-worthy. But in all honesty, it didn’t evoke much longing for the ‘good old days’ – and we’re left unsure whether he intended it to.
It was in Frank’s astute observations about accessible themes, like the mundanity of the Red Arrows, that the truly made the crowd howl. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not breaking any new ground. But nor does anyone want him to. Frank’s expert timing and storytelling artistry never missed the mark, and it’s a joy to watch such a pro at work.
Audience interaction was a delight, as Frank bantered with a flamboyant bloke in the front row; a risky choice to pick the loudest audience member in the room as your sounding board. But he controlled the dialogue with satisfying flair, to a hooting crowd. He also asked another, within the first five minutes, whether they’d just had a good text come through, ‘mate.’
‘Did you mistake this for the tram?’ he quipped, as the audience roared along to his pithy beat. Some of his one-liners were also whiplash funny and smart. Needless to say, Frank had the audience in the palm of his hand as soon as he opened his mouth.
Frank Skinner isn’t going to be starting a comedy revolution any time soon. But as one 50-something woman pointed out to me after in the march out of the theatre – to her, he’s already in one. While comedy used to be all about one liners and flinging dirt, it’s transitioned into a more thoughtful place of storytelling mastery.
No one can deny Frank is a storytelling machine and master of the stage. But perhaps next time he could mock Kate Middleton for something other than her appearance. Maybe Frank is right when he says comedy is getting harder to write these days. But so it should.
