A version of this review appeared in the Evening Standard here.

You don’t just watch Tom Allen’s latest show Absolutely, you strap in. From the moment he bounces breathlessly onstage to the moment he neatly wraps everything up with his final grandstanding gag this is a riotous rollercoaster of a set from a skilful stand-up perched on the cusp of major fame. 

If there is a caveat it is that the dapper comic’s camp style is well-trodden terrain. Take Graham Norton’s loquaciousness, Alan Carr’s snarkiness and stir in the withering disdain of Frankie Howerd and you have Allen. But there is no denying the appeal of his countless get-back-in-the-cutlery-drawer sharp lines.

After some brilliantly cruel quick-fire crowdwork – “Trauma counsellor and you live in Maidstone? You must be inundated” — the show consists of a sequence of tales from Allen’s life, loosely themed around the idea of him never fitting in.

Memorable routines include stories about kerfuffles in M&S, awful childhood parties, the tribulations of online dating and, best of all, anecdotes about his suburban Bromley parents, who are very different to him. He makes his mum and dad sound like they have stepped off the EastEnders set, while he sounds like Noël Coward.

This cultural juxtaposition is mined for every laugh. As is his account of being token male at a hen do in Reading that included a buffet boasting the “four dips of the apocalypse”. Allen has a particular penchant for impeccable food-based jokes. Elsewhere, a description of a voucher-enhanced Pizza Express meal is excruciatingly resonant and excruciatingly funny.

In fact almost everything is extremely relatable, whether you are in your mid-thirties like Allen or older or younger. Cut him open and you’d see “prime-time entertainer” running through him like Blackpool through a stick of rock. But don’t do it — it would ruin his immaculate suit. Go and see him instead.

Buy tickets for Tom Allen's tour here.