Comedy review: Best of West, Glasgow

TRANSPLANTED from Blyth to Edinburgh, the affable Kai Humphries has matured as a comic in recent years, supplementing his engaging warmth with stronger, less rambling anecdotes.

Kai Humphries (right) was 'impossible to dislike'. Picture: Contributed

Best Of West

West Brewery Comedy Club

***

The Geordie certainly appreciates the impact of a routine about gingerness in Scotland, and he follows this memorable, visually reinforced introduction with some solid storytelling.

By far the best and most inventive of these stories concerns Larry, the auto-pilot part of his brain that takes over when he’s not focusing, leaving him befuddled and exasperated but receiving widespread recognition from the audience.

A routine about his brother’s marijuana consumption is embellished too far, to its detriment. And an aquarium visit requires plenty of set-up for a so-so meeting of dumb minds. But with his naturally upbeat disposition, belying some finely crafted lines, Humphries is impossible to dislike and he was well supported by Jamie Dalgleish.

The Easterhouse native didn’t get the response he needed or deserved from the muted crowd – his accounts of various holidays, playing on a disparity between his working-class roots and his Tuscany wine tour pretensions, would undoubtedly have benefited from more audience back-and-forth.

Regardless, a winning routine about the sectarianism underpinning an automated computer game and his sardonic dismissal of alcoholism as an illness suggest that his solo festival show ought to be worth catching. Scott Gibson hosted with his usual unflappable ease, while Stuart Mitchell and Chris MacArthur-Boyd did their reputations no harm with amusing short sets.

Seen on 12.03.15