By BRUCE DENNILL
Alan Committie: Av-A-Laugh-Ta / Directed by Christopher Weare / Pieter Toerien’s Montecasino Theatre, Montecasino, Fourways
Writing and performing a solo stand-up show for four or five consecutive years is a notable achievement. Doing it for 28 years in a row – more than half of a lifetime – is a feat of showbiz stamina and sustained creativity not many can match.
Over that time, Alan Committie has honed his act to a point where it appears to be just natural flow rather than anything scripted – it’s probably somewhere in the middle, given that every show has an element of audience interaction and improvisation based on whatever happens there. Consistency like this does have a flip side, though, as elements that generally get a good response are included again and again in each new show, with the result that the kind of material and the way it’s going to be delivered is fairly predictable, even as the topics and nuances of Committie’s analysis of it stay up to date.
Given this aspect of the comic’s output – both difficult and foolish to avoid; it’s a model that works – it is deliriously satisfying when performance style, comic timing, great gags and fresh material come together as well as they do in Ava-Laugh-Ta, particularly when the pun in the title was perhaps harder work for some audiences than in years past.
The cultural tentpole this time out is James Cameron’s latest epic film, but as ever, the theme Committie, er, commits to is only ever a jumping off point, though bringing the director’s films into the discussion does open up an opportunity for a hugely amusing final skit, among many other funny threads.
The subject matter veers from cars to growing up to politics (very briefly), international travel, and musical theatre, by way of a load of connective material. Linking all of this – brilliantly – is what feels like a higher number of callbacks (where comedians reference punchlines from earlier in the show as part of stories or one-liners added later on) than has been the case in previous shows. This adds a dimension to the performance that, while perhaps not fully appreciated by everyone in the room for writing and performance expertise involved, re-introduces punchlines that inspired belly laughs earlier, meaning that really having a gap to get your breath back between giggles and guffaws is a bit of a lost cause.
More experience, more craft, more guffaws – bring on number 29.