It is hard to tell which came first. Eddie Pepitone’s despair at the world around him or his despair at his own position in the world. The two attitudes jostle equally with each other in the American comic’s welcome return to London.
A well-worn 56, Pepitone has seen a lot of life and clearly given it all a lot of thought. Wouldn’t it be great, he wonders, if he was a Rat Pack-style lounge singer who actually sang about important political issues. He has a crack and he doesn’t have a bad voice at all. He tosses his hat to a fan and notes that people never toss their hat and say something bad. It’s always lottery wins, never blood being found in your urine.
While on the surface Pepitone is your off-the-shelf Louis CK-style angry cynic this show has many more layers than initially meet the eye. He has, in particular, a trademark habit of stepping back and providing his own running commentary on how his set is going.
This verbalised inner monologue is great for geeks like me, but I’m not sure if it helped to win over any floating voters last night whose interest in him might have been piqued by his appearance on Radio 4’s Midweek on Wednesday. It was more likely to make the people feeling uncomfortable even more uncomfortable.
This show, entitled What Rough Beast, seems more overtly political than previous more personally bleak monologues. From the moment he introduces himself as coming from “a dying country” you know you are not watching America’s top cheerleader.
Much of what he says about the greed and venality of the corporate world could easily apply to Britain too. He also drops in some neat, knowing British references, so it was a little irritating when he talked about The Price Is Right as if it was a programme that had never aired here, but that is easily corrected..
It was hard sometimes to see where impro ended and scripted began, bu that didn't really matter. Threads were dropped, but cannily gathered up later on, suggesting that there is a lot more planning going on than one might think. Towards the last quarter his end-of-days schtick did run out of steam a little – have you noticed that everyone these days goes around glued to their smartphone? No shit, Sherlock.
But there were definitely way more highs than lows – his Marlon Brando impression is probably worth the ticket price alone. A bit of a comedian’s comedian, but a very good one.
Until May 24. Tickets here.
