Review: Russell Howard at Birmingham LG Arena
He's one of Mock the Week's biggest success stories and has made a career out of feel-good news.
Russell Howard
LG Arena, Birmingham
Review by?Charlotte Cross
He's one of Mock the Week's biggest success stories and has made a career out of feel-good news.
He's also kind of cute, in an odd sort of way. Heat magazine voted him third in the Weird Crush 2011 poll.
And Russell Howard proved he has the potential to stay the course as he played to an almost-full LG Arena yesterday. If, that is, he learns to stick to what his strengths are.
The evening started on a slow note, with some crude, uncomfortably graphic sexual references which kept rearing their ugly head through the evening.
Fortunately, it was only occasionally, and the majority of the humour came from anecdotes about his quirky Bristolian family, drunken encounters and the eccentricities of strangers.
Peppering his routine with references to his BBC show Good News, he kept the audience laughing for two hours. While it's not rolling-in-the-ailes hilarious, it's safe to say there were a few aching cheeks by the end of the night.
But his real strength seems to be in improvisation, dealing with hecklers like a pro and a Q&A session at the end getting some real belly-laughs from the crowd.
