Comedy review: James Sherwood - The Stand, Edinburgh

ONCE a derided sub-genre, musical comedy has come of age thanks to the merry likes of Tim Minchin, David O’Doherty and Bo Burnham.

Whereas those three have, respectively, performed at the Albert Hall, won British comedy’s biggest stage award and been courted by Hollywood, none of those things seem likely to ever happen to James Sherwood. Perhaps that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as he appeared perfectly content to be playing this intimate, low-key set in front of an appreciative audience.

When anyone comes on to a comedy stage to set their organ up, you know they’ve just handed the night’s compere a smutty gift, and our Eddie Izzard-esque host for the evening, Stuart Murphy, rose manfully to the occasion.

Coming across as a mild mix of Richard Stilgoe and Tim Key, Sherwood neither broke new ground nor kicked over his equipment. Instead he gently meandered his way into our affections with a pedantic analysis of bad grammar by U2 and in the world of hip hop plus the terrible maths of Cher, The Commodores and Paul Simon (50 Ways to Leave Your Lover really does fall significantly short of that total).

He also dipped into the pop canon to discuss tactics that a musical comic must use to deal with hecklers while the sole piece of “original” material was a music hall take on carnal knowledge.

The only time Sherwood’s gentle humour came close to shocking the system was with some deliberately awful punning, too stomach-churning to repeat here.

Rating: ***