Comedy review: Sanderson Jones, Blackfriars, Glasgow

IT’S one thing taking an impromptu ribbing off a stand-up for turning up late to a show – but another thing entirely to find a comedian humiliating you before you’ve even arrived, using a slideshow making fun of your mundane tweets.

Sanderson Jones

Blackfriars, Glasgow

***

Poor latecomer Sam could take consolation from knowing he wasn’t alone in being singled out for embarrassment at the internet-savvy hands of Sanderson Jones – a beardy eccentric Englishman who insists on delivering every gig ticket personally, then intensively scouring for patrons online in search of compromising information to fuel audience-bespoke multimedia shows.

That extends to critics, even if Jones did hope a good review here could win him an audience at his next GCF date on Sunday of “up to 30 people” (last night’s show wasn’t hugely well attended). I’ve got his inability to locate me on Twitter – despite his claim to being a pro social media stalker – to thank for getting off lightly, not to mention a colleague who was generous enough to decline Jones’ invitation to appear via video gloating for once beating me to a journalism award.

His conceit is clever, original and not a little bold, then, yet runs a risk of crashing if things don’t go to plan. Not to mention at the mercy of gremlins, as key slides and other media are misplaced or fail to load.

But he makes a salient point about the alarming readiness with which we plaster our lives over publicly accessible social networks. And I suppose the true beauty of a multimedia show is you can always just have a sure-to-please montage of YouTube clips of men getting hit in the testicles ready at a click. Reason enough alone why up to 30 people should go on Sunday.