Seeing as Jake Lambert’s people are still using my five star review from Edinburgh Fringe 2022 on their marketing for his 2024/25 tour, I feel I ought to say something about it, having forked out (and then spent the same amount again on wine during the evening) to check out his new show. I’d reviewed him ‘properly’ enough times at the Fringe over recent years that he recognised me afterwards as everyone was filing out last time around. A large part of me is pleased he (or, to be precise, the public persona of himself, however true to his private self it may or may not be) hasn’t changed a bit, and it’s refreshing to come across someone who hasn’t (again, at least not publicly) used the global pandemic to re-evaluate their entire ideology on anything and everything.
He still doesn’t want children and still has much to say about his epilepsy – the former was neither here nor there for this metropolitan, cosmopolitan, unassuming Leicester Square Theatre audience. The latter means he is obliged to use disabled conveniences, because he might have a seizure and need to pull an emergency cord that isn’t available in regular loos: the problem then, as you can imagine, is walking out of a disabled loo, and getting judgemental stares from people who don’t understand the simple principle that not all disabilities are visible. At least not until Lambert is having a flipping seizure.
He tried, he said, to put together a positive show. This, at the risk of licking the guy’s arse (proverbially!), is admirable in a world where there are so many reasons to join the legions of people on the standup circuit who are Very Loud and Angry about anything and everything. Lambert even finds scope to praise the American people (no, he’s not a believer in ‘MAGA’) – their audiences are more enthusiastic than we are in Blighty. I recently read a column by John McWhorter, on the staff of the New York Times, about how common, and indeed ubiquitous, standing ovations are at Broadway curtain calls these days. Lambert goes one further and is appreciative of the Yanks who give comedians a standing ovation at the start.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him interact with the audience at length – still on the subject of the United States, Lambert quite liked their prohibition on alcohol for under-21s, if only because it gives their younger people something to look forward to: there is, in Lambert’s estimation, nothing between being able to drink legally and getting a free bus pass. The exact lower age limit of various other things being namedropped was subjected by the knowledgeable audience to correction. Repeatedly. It’s not Lambert’s fault we’ve had so many Prime Ministers in the last few years, each with their own political agenda, such that the law keeps changing.
Anyway, the five stars from Fringe 2022 stands. Typically, his next Leicester Square Theatre gig has also sold out, and there’s not many seats left for his Bloomsbury Theatre dates. Worth seeing though – quite literally, if you can.
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