I think Ian Smith has a bit of a beef with me. I'm not sure if he remembers it, but twice onstage he has besmirched my good name. Once by having a go at me when I'd written something about him making jokes about his hometown Goole being only one letter away from Google, and once because I'd not run a review of his show about doing an eventful gig in Scandanavia. Anyway, at least I can make up for the latter calumny by giving his latest show, Crushing, a very positive review.
Crushing, which was being filmed for Nextup, is an account of a series of frustrations which culminated in him heading to Bratislava with his hairdresser (it's a long, but typically funny story) and thumping the living daylights out of a Toyota with a hammer before running it over with a tank. He's not a hooligan by the way, it's a thing you can pay to do to de-stress or just do it for some stag weekend lark. Well, for Smith it's one way to stop yourself from seething about all that life has thrown at you.
Things have not quite panned out as he expected. You can get a sense of this, he explains at the start, by the fact that his last show was about getting engaged and this one is most definitely not about being blissfully married. He feels as if he has been dealt a losing hand in life's poker game. Even when things look up, such as when he was cast in the recent Emily Atack series without having to audition, the downside was that the character was described as "boring creep". Maybe they saw something in Smith that made him perfect for the role.
Though actually onstage he is anything but dull. As he describes frustration after frustration, from Blackpool hotel rooms for hell to being patronised because he comes from the north to being heckled by the noisy air conditioning at a crucial junction in the narrative, the hilarity just keeps coming. Teeth is something of a theme. There's a story about him having to wear a mouth guard to stop grinding his molars and there's a great flight of fancy about the idea that teeth are the only part of the body that we get a "practice go" at.
On the bright side at least he can see the comical side of his woes. You could probably make an entire sitcom episode out of each of his calamitous attempts to cheer up. Even when he tries to ease his angst in a flotation tank things go utterly pear-shaped. Despite his beef with me I've always enjoyed Smith. And with this latest catalogue of calamities he has excelled himself.
Until August 27. Info here.
four stars
