Stephen K Amos, although a mightily talented comic, doesn’t make a critic’s job easy. His new show, The Feelgood Factor, does indeed offer that and leaves everybody in the Churchill Theatre in Bromley in a happy mood (and many of them planning to buy him a pint afterwards), but unless I quoted reams of his delivery I couldn’t actually describe what the show is about, other than making people laugh. A lot.
That’s not a criticism; it’s just that over the past decade or so we have come to expect comics to have themed shows with a narrative rather than simply to tell jokes with punchlines, one after the other, as the old club comics used to do. What Amos does is a bit of both, with some storytelling and observational comedy thrown in for good measure. It may defy my attempts to define it but, whatever the show is, the end result is that Amos is very, very good at entertaining people.
In addition to his successful solo shows, Amos has long had a reputation in the industry as the best compere around - and that’s a huge compliment to pay a performer. Enough ego to hold the stage, enough humility not to overshadow other performers on the bill; enough material to meld into any line-up, enough ability to hone and time it to fit. And besides, his greatest talent, and shown to great effect on this tour, is his astonishing - I would say unequalled - ability to riff with a live audience.
The Londoner of Nigerian descent is almost on home turf in Bromley, a little to the east of where he grew up and more sarf than south, if you get my meaning, and the audience clearly love him, although many are seeing him for the first time. He has done his research well, with several gags about the local shopping centre and how locals look down on those who live just down the road, but in inner-London boroughs as opposed to the suburb that Bromley is. They are well aimed but affectionate barbs and no one fears being singled out by him. Then someone upends a gag about common versus posh names in these parts by having the wrong one for the area he lives in, as it were, but Amos, always quick on his feet, turns that around - “There’s always one... and that proves my point.”
His subject matter ranges from ugly babies and toys he received as a kid to songs we sing in the shower and daft things people say to him when he visits foreign countries. He is deft in his inclusion of race-related material; it provides a subtle through-line to the evening and he leaves the audience to join the dots. He recounts how he once met Prince Harry - “You don’t sound like a black man” - and that becomes an almost throwaway line in a story that Amos amusingly turns against himself. And an expression of his life philosophy, to be able to have a laugh with anyone one meets regardless of their origins, comes across as genuine rather than preachy - and this in an area depressingly close to BNP territory.
There are a couple of bum notes - his remarks about Venus and Serena Williams I find misogynistic and one of his jokes, a reworked urban legend, is unforgivably old, even if he does make the punchline about himself rather than the original subject, Bono. (You will know the one if I just say “clicking fingers”.) But those are mere caveats about a thoroughly engaging evening; Amos has just been given a series on BBC2 (to be aired next year) and they may well have found their new Mr Entertainment.
Stephen K Amos is at the Grand Theatre and Opera House in Leeds tonight and then touring until 27 February 2010. Information
His previous live show, Find the Funny, is released on DVD on 23 November. Order here
In addition to his successful solo shows, Amos has long had a reputation in the industry as the best compere around - and that’s a huge compliment to pay a performer. Enough ego to hold the stage, enough humility not to overshadow other performers on the bill; enough material to meld into any line-up, enough ability to hone and time it to fit. And besides, his greatest talent, and shown to great effect on this tour, is his astonishing - I would say unequalled - ability to riff with a live audience.
The Londoner of Nigerian descent is almost on home turf in Bromley, a little to the east of where he grew up and more sarf than south, if you get my meaning, and the audience clearly love him, although many are seeing him for the first time. He has done his research well, with several gags about the local shopping centre and how locals look down on those who live just down the road, but in inner-London boroughs as opposed to the suburb that Bromley is. They are well aimed but affectionate barbs and no one fears being singled out by him. Then someone upends a gag about common versus posh names in these parts by having the wrong one for the area he lives in, as it were, but Amos, always quick on his feet, turns that around - “There’s always one... and that proves my point.”
His subject matter ranges from ugly babies and toys he received as a kid to songs we sing in the shower and daft things people say to him when he visits foreign countries. He is deft in his inclusion of race-related material; it provides a subtle through-line to the evening and he leaves the audience to join the dots. He recounts how he once met Prince Harry - “You don’t sound like a black man” - and that becomes an almost throwaway line in a story that Amos amusingly turns against himself. And an expression of his life philosophy, to be able to have a laugh with anyone one meets regardless of their origins, comes across as genuine rather than preachy - and this in an area depressingly close to BNP territory.
There are a couple of bum notes - his remarks about Venus and Serena Williams I find misogynistic and one of his jokes, a reworked urban legend, is unforgivably old, even if he does make the punchline about himself rather than the original subject, Bono. (You will know the one if I just say “clicking fingers”.) But those are mere caveats about a thoroughly engaging evening; Amos has just been given a series on BBC2 (to be aired next year) and they may well have found their new Mr Entertainment.
Stephen K Amos is at the Grand Theatre and Opera House in Leeds tonight and then touring until 27 February 2010. Information
His previous live show, Find the Funny, is released on DVD on 23 November. Order here
