Reviews

Russell Howard is one of the up and coming British comics who has potential to reach a wide audience. Yet I always feel the true sign of a comic who'll last is one who impresses on the circuit.

Thankfully he did this tonight.

Humble and energetic in his humour, Russell Howard has created a comic style which captures you from the off and carries you along all the way until the Q&A at the end - where you pause to catch your breath.

A tight set with good observational humour and anecdotes from his family life in Bristol, Russell portrays an image of a hard working comic who is always trying to find the humour in the strangest of things.

Most notably a fantastic yet disturbing story when his younger brother had a seizure on Christmas Day. The first thing Russell did when he found his brother was to compare the difference in genital size.

Russell Howard

His younger brother came off the better.

There's also a rawness to the show which appealed to me, with just the stage, microphone and the ever hungry audience present.

His enthusiasm was never in question and is evident in his motions and delivery. This seems to be the best format for live performances, as with no distractions you hang on to Russell's ever word.

Grand attendance

With only a handful of spare seats dotted around the Grand Hall, Russell performed the gig to an almost full house. Those who failed to turn up will clearly kick themselves that they missed a clever and developing comic.

Those who did attend seemed to get swept into, as I did, the world of Howard for a good hour's set.

Structuring your set can be as important as the jokes themselves and I can't help but feel his closing gags let him down, and his gamble on a Q&A at the end backfired.

Russell Howard clearly has many of the talents and skills needed to perform live comedy.

His performance in Ipswich clearly shows he's making his mark on the comedy scene and things are starting to open up for the young Bristol comic.