Comedy review: Pam Ann: UK Layover

Published on Monday 23 November 2009 20:25

KING'S THEATRE, GLASGOW **

THE aviation industry may be in the doldrums, but Pam Ann will never be grounded. Her rabidly enthusiastic following – among flight crews and "her gays" especially – testifies to the fact that the faded glamour of air travel has only enhanced its comic potential. Caroline Reid's spoof trolley dolly bitches, claws and camps it up to the stratosphere with broad parodies of each carrier's characteristics along the lines of national stereotype – Lufthansa is aggressively efficient; Austrian Airlines is evoked for increasingly gratuitous references to Josef Fritzl – and there's also class-based sniping at the plebs sat in the King's "economy" seats.

Pam's force of personality, enjoyment of audience participation and understanding of how to create a spectacle, with her two buff dancers in tow, almost covers for lazy material that, at its absolute nadir, consists of her simply barking expletives. Still, two routines linger particularly unappealingly in the memory: the reception afforded to her startlingly regressive but, depressingly, perennially popular Singapore Airlines attendant Lily, all squeaky voice, giggles and glasses with eye slits; and the assertion that Michelle Obama has "pimped" Air Force One, ferrying Oprah Winfrey and employing Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson.

Reid has performed across the globe, entertained the rich and famous, and undoubtedly enjoys some of the lingering luxury of flight's golden age, yet clearly travel could still broaden her mind.