If Paul Foot looked unconventional in his kipper tie and with the haircut of Dave Hill from Slade, then his stand up show at the Curve on Tuesday night was too. He begin by announcing his imminent arrival onto the stage over the PA and then deciding that he liked doing the announcements so much that he kept us - literally - in the dark for another five minutes. Once he finally came out, he spent another ten minutes clambering over the audience as he explained exactly what was going to happen once he came out to start the show for 'real'.
There was a similar absurdist streak running through the show; not much really made sense and there was little recognisable as a conventional joke. Nevertheless, Foot had the audience gasping with laughter from early on, no mean feat for a comedian who has something of a reputation for polarising audience opinion. At one point, he was able to sustain the laughter from a preposterous anecdote for minutes, without saying a word, but virtually conducting the crowd with a raised eyebrow and a nod. Not everything worked quite so well. A bit where a hobby horse was swung to change the conversation between gibberish and English was slightly long for its slim premise, but even that got big laughs at times.
He ended the show in equally bizarre manner, simply laying out his merchandise on a table, sitting on a chair and waiting to see if people would twig the show was actually over.
Paul Foot is possibly a genuis.
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