Comedian Rich Hall, from Virginia, USA, familiar face on many TV panel show / comedy programmes including QI, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, and Have I Got News For You. Hall now splits his time between England (his wife is a true Liverpudlian!), and his ranch in Montana.
Tonight's show at The Lowry was essentially two gigs in one. Hall's first half was given over to stand-up comedy, whilst in the second half he channelled his former alter-ego Otis Lee Crenshaw, and sang a comedy country music set.
But first, the stand-up. I don't know if it is deliberate or not, but Hall can sometimes come-across as quite intimidating and acerbic. It's difficult to tell since with him wearing a cowboy hat all the time, one can't see whether or not the light is still shining in his eyes - I suspect it is - but his brusqueness and manner don't always hit home. This was evidenced a few times this evening. The punchlines to his jokes simply bombed, because we didn't understand the set-up to them. His style is very shouty and angry, which is his 'trademark' so to speak, but combine that with his thick US accent (which a few people had difficulty with this evening!) and the fact that he never seemed to be looking directly at the audience and stiff body language, you can see that it is sometimes rather hard to 'latch on ' to his humour. This is the first time I have seen Hall live, and so wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but he seemed to have taken his TV deadpan unsmiling ranting self just a little too far for Salford's audience this evening. His jokes didn't land, and he himself seemed perplexed and unsure, and towards the end of this first half he was visibly losing impetus and running out of steam. That's such a shame because some of his material this evening was indeed extremely funny and well-observed. It was just sandwiched between a lot of very mediocre material which failed to land.
The other thing which irked me somewhat was his over-use of unnecessary expletives. Again, a joke is not dependant (usually) on a swear-word to make it funny; it's either funny or it isn't. Sometimes a well-placed 'f***' can improve the 'shock value' of the joke. However when the comedian is using swear-words as regularly as Hall was this evening - a couple in every sentence - then their value and their need is negated, and it just becomes almost offensive.
Fortunately the indignities he suffered in the first half were made up for by the bucket-load in the second. His hoedown material was much funnier, much more lively, and you could palpably feel the whole audience lift. Here he showed us that he was indeed both a clever and quick-witted improviser and a more than competent musician. Taking audience responses on board he worked songs around them finding rhymes and making jokes, interspersed with pre-written material, including a song about his wife [although his wife hasn't heard the song yet.......!], and a more mellow and reflective song from his latest album.
Hall played guitar (and even mouth organ too in one song), whilst he was accompanied by bass guitarist Rob Childs and drummer Mark Hewitt [I hope those names are right, without programme and just listening to Hall shout them out they may be wrong, but if they are then I apologise].
In one of his songs he sounded exactly like (even the melody was somewhat reminiscent of a song by) Austrian Hubert Von Goisern. {obviously just a coincidence that only those who have lived in Austria and are familiar with von Goisern's oeuvre would pick up.... !} Another was a funny song by Gusty Crosswinds {is that another Rich Hall alter-ego??} which he then proceeded to translate into English; he displayed his knowledge of local geography and which towns to denigrate with some skill, and finished with an up-beat song about a Border Collie. It was his comedy songs with the audience though with which he truly excelled, and this evening he was somewhat upstaged by his choice of audience member, Julian, who accompanied Hall with the song, 'Fir On A Stick'. This was hilarious, and Hall's comeback excellent.
Rich Hall is obviously a seasoned and accomplished performer, and has the ability to be exceedingly funny. His music routine was superb, he had cut-down immeasurably on his swearing - [in one song, the comedy relied on him NOT saying the word 'penis' and this accrued a better laugh than most of his crudeness in the first half did] - and personally I could have stayed and line-danced (yes, why didn't we get up in the aisles.. are we really just too British to do that??) with Hall for a lot longer.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 3/12/18
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