Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Hive)
Aug 13, 15-25
16:45
Stuart Laws bundles onto the stage in an outfit which, around 30 minutes later, turns out to be even funnier than it first looks. This kind of innate, quirky oddness is as good an introduction to the kind of skittery, mildly surreal, material he fires out at a rapid pace over an hour of finely crafted, funny, if not necessarily polished, whimsy; which had the audience tittering, yelping, and guffawing throughout. In fairness, he had a somewhat challenging beginning to his set, having asked the audience what ‘the biggest pig they could imagine’ was, and receiving an unpleasantly misogynistic response from someone at the back of the room. It is to Law’s huge credit that he risked turning this knuckle-dragger into a problematic audience member by calling out his anachronistic input in direct fashion, right at the beginning of his set, and this no doubt had some effect on the rest of the show. It did not however prevent him from showing off an incredibly broad range of skills, humour, and pathos.
His opening section is framed around his struggle with ‘small talk’, and with no small amount of irony he proceeds to work the crowd, eliciting giggles of recognition at the beautifully described horrors of meaningless chat. As with a number of shows I’ve seen this year, there is a strong focus in Law’s material on mental health, and neurodiversity, without letting either of these areas overshadow the actual comedy being performed. It’s refreshing to see the number of performers this year who are simply mining strong, unique material, from what are becoming increasingly ‘normal’ things to talk about. Plus, as we are reminded numerous times throughout the set, a lot of funny things happen when you have different needs, communication styles, and perception to those who consider themselves to be ’neurotypical’, if indeed many such ‘normal’ people actually exist at all. After 20 minutes of Law’s set he has us all hilariously convinced that even the most recognisable of religious figures did not meet cognitive norms. This is a beautifully put together section, and the crowd response recognises this.
To this he adds in impersonations of fictional pets, psychological profiling based on audience members banking establishments of choice, and some very high quality ad-libbing on the few occasions his high speed patter causes him to stumble over lines, which he then polishes up into genuinely laugh out loud nuggets which he makes note of to add to his next show. All of this is carried out in service of trying to ‘establish a relationship with the audience’, and the overall premise of the show is framed around his supposed inability to build enough rapport to develop lasting relationships, and the underpinning factor of an autism diagnosis in this. In truth, this is one area of the show which doesn’t quite fly, the man is just too likeable. Anyone who can craft together a joke about autism, milking it for material, and reference the famous ‘Cretan Paradox’ and get a belly full of laughter back is not struggling that badly with their abilities to build trust and confidence in and from others.
Law’s is also performing an hour of Michael Caine, & I’m excited about seeing him tackle that with the same edge of Vic & Bob style absurdity which oozes out of his performance here. A talented comedian crafting a solid hour of clever, silly, thoughtful and surreal comedy from feelings of social alienation? No, I’m not joking, but Stuart Laws certainly is.
Ewan Law
themumble.uk 