POOR YORICK

Russell Kane in Amsterdam Was a Moderate Amount of Fun

REVIEW. The Essex Variant: no longer so contagious

The main venue at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam holds about 300 people and almost all seats were taken.

Perhaps it was because it was a Tuesday night, perhaps it was because all British people in the audience were actually living in Amsterdam and had to go to work in the morning, but the overall atmosphere was fairly sedate, despite Russell Kane’s typically hyperactive performance.

I drank three pints of Leffe Blond and I laughed: Russell Kane is an accomplished performer and a great comedian. His accents are great, he has a knack for languages, he uses his face and body very effectively, he has great energy. And yet I found it hard to care about the material. It lacked urgency.

Perhaps urgency is too much to ask for. As he himself admitted, the COVID-19 slant in the title of his tour now felt out of date. Contrasting British people with people from other parts of Europe was funnier when we were all in the EU. Slagging your weird uncle is no longer so funny at his funeral. Brexit has ended our camp European "It’s a knock-out!" game with a real death in the family.

Instead of embracing obsessive sobriety or being paralytically drunk, Russell Kane admired and pastiched other Europeans’ ability to have "a moderate amount of fun".

It was.