Tom Ward is both compere and headline act of tonight’s show (“cuts,” he explains), which makes him effectively the warm up act for his own warm up act. So underwhelming is our response when he first hits the stage, however, that we are made to do it again, to give a welcome more befitting to a talented comic touring the country (“he’s like an angry teacher!”, the man behind me comments). It is worth it, though, as the crowd’s energy is much better the second time around (you know what English people are like; we need explicit permission just to cough, let alone whoop and shriek).
Ward opens up by “getting to know us” via a little questionnaire he proceeds to visit upon random members of the audience. With his incredible Ian Brownesque mod mop a subject of the first couple of questions (“Was Hayley Cropper, Anne Robinson or Angela Merkel the main inspiration?”), we are quickly moved into more risque territory. (“Who's come here with someone they love? Someone they used to love? Who's forgiven their mum?”) His crowd work - surely the most difficult and nervewracking part of a stand up’s job - is outstanding, and the chortles are well and truly in full effect by time the the official warm up, Rob Copland, joins us.
Copland has perhaps the most esoteric range of subjects I have ever seen from a comedian. Opening with his favourite section of the alphabet (“LMNOP, am I right? The rest of it is just a joyless chore.”), he is soon onto tapestries and hide and seek before finishing with the more workaday theme of, erm, working every day (“I don’t mind having a job,” he explains, “it’s having to do the job every day that I resent.”) But in Copland’s hands, even that soon becomes an extended soliloquy on the schizophrenic relationship between goalkeeper and ball. Looking like Eugene Hutz in a parallel universe in which he’d only ever experienced first world problems and then become a science teacher, he has some wondrous physical routines, augmented with impressive verbal dexterity and all washed down with some killer one liners and generous lashings of weirdness. Definitely a comic intent on ploughing his own furrow.
Tom Ward chooses more relatable subject matter, such as house prices (“my friend is a fairly typical homeowner - he bought his house in 1987 for £1.29, retiled the bathroom, and now it’s worth £1.2.million”), coffee shops (“all staffed by the same boy - 24 years old, blonde, called Theo, and looks like July in Hitler’s personal calendar”), and our lack of sympathy towards the psychological pain of rich people (you had to be there!). Ward has an impressive knack of being able to make potentially depressing subjects - such as climate catastrophe and, erm, depression - consistently hilarious, and manages to touch on some polarising issues without coming across as either preachy, or trivialising. In these days of culture wars, the ability to do that in a way that will appeal to all is impressive. But, far more importantly, it is side-splittingly funny. Go and see him if you get the chance.