The Boy With Tape On His Face, Touring

The mistake was probably that I hadn’t tanked up beforehand. Clues were there. Soho Theatre is over a pub. 9.45pm start. Who’s going to turn up in those circumstances completely sober? Who would be mad enough to turn up in Soho at 9.45pm stone-cold sober? And a four-star Edinburgh Fringe show had not necessarily been assessed by altogether un-punchdrunk viewers, lurching as they do (and I have done) between five shows a night.

Well, something had to account for The Boy With Tape On His Face being, sigh, not that funny. Sometimes, as Penelope Keith moaned in The Good Life, I feel that I’m not a complete woman. Or else maybe dance is mostly funnier than comedy.

“Physical comedy sensation” screamed Time Out London. “If you see one comedian, this is the one,” Adelaide Sunday Mail. “The boy has to be seen to be believed,” The Advertiser (Aus). And since our own Veronica Lee had a four-star time watching him in Edinburgh this summer (plus he was a nominee for a Fringe Comedy Award) I am ready to believe that this silent clown has it in him. But it must depend so heavily on the audience, since all his hour-long show involves pranks with audience participation.

TBWTOHF sits watching us while we take our seats, black gaffer tape across his mouth, bright round eyes darting here and there, finding faces, finding haircuts, possibly working out which way he’ll take particular gags. He has a cardboard box, out of which he pulls props, wigs, a plastic doll, a snow globe, reels of more gaffer tape, and the stage rapidly looks like a flytip. There's a video on his website that helpfully speeds up his activity as if it were a silent movie; if only in real life he could move more like that.

I’m assuming that since his soundscore is so deft, the fact that it strings together snatches of cornily well-known movie themes and pop songs means that there will always be a F*** M**** sketch, always a G****  one, and always one about J****. I can’t say what they are or I’d spoil the fun for other nights on TBWTOHF’s extensive UK tour. But it's unadventurous for someone as young as Sam Wills, born 1978, to be using Patrick Swayze and classic Motown for his references.

I partly blame the man sitting in front of me (front row) for my resistance. He was giggling and signalling, clapping loudly, almost wetting himself with delight, and I wondered if he was a stooge. Duly, up he went on stage - and then over-eagerly gave away one of TBWTOHF’s gags (it involved a likeness between a prop wig and his own barnet). I am told by Wills's management that there is no stooge, so I guess he was just a slightly too keen fan whose devotion spoiled it for others.

At any rate, I expected this to be more individual, less predictable, particularly when treading a relatively neglected niche like silent clowning. But after the brilliance, cutting intelligence and sheer richness of entertainment of the dance-comedy of Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion the other week (a pair of truly superlative clowns with the extra dimension of rhythm and movement tricks) Wills's mild games with singing shoes, Christmas-cracker tricks and homey films underwhelmed me. And I mean it about dance being better at magical comedy with props: the Edinburgh Fringe's physical theatre strand has fielded the astonishing Derevo, Andrew Dawson, the Tbilisi Marionettes, others whose minds work more imaginatively and riskily in liberating your fantasy along with tickling your funnybone.

However, it’s only fair to say that the audience around me was rocking with laughter. As TBWTOHF signed off, a female voice on the speaker said, “If you liked this tell everyone - word of mouth is the best there is. If you didn’t... drink and drive.” Ah, sadly, I'd had to drive in, hence no drink, but could have done with a bit more of that kind of acerbity generally.

• The Boy With Tape On His Face tours to Bolton’s Albert Halls on Friday; Blackburn’s King George’s Hall, 5 Nov; Preston’s The Frog and Bucket, 7 Nov; Edinburgh’s The Stand, 30 Nov, and Glasgow’s The Stand, 1 Dec
• The Boy With Tape On His Face's website