Rich Hall: Hoedown @ Garage

Rich Hall has won the most prestigious comedy prizes and also has a claim as the real-life inspiration for bartender Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. 

This makes for high expectations and Hoedown doesn't disappoint its sell-out crowd. Starting with some straight stand-up, Rich Hall never actually needs to 'cut to the song', but when he's joined by the band we know the rhythm of the laughter in the room is set to equal the rhythm of the country music. 

Some of the stand-up tonight, though, does rely on previously topical material and so is a strange Time Hop back to an era where we all found ourselves shocked to find horse-meat in our lasagne. However, the strength of Hall's material in probing the absurdity of our outrage does overcome the current news context it really needs for the pay-off. He's more successful tweaking what's obviously an older Top Gear story into the news frenzy of the now. 

It's also clear Hall would have enjoyed the possibility of the audience participating in the show with more physicality. Perhaps a downside to Hoedown commanding larger spaces is for it to miss some sort of immersive line-dance layer to the show. But then, it is housed well in the Garage and certainly the band do more than enough to conjure the barn dance atmosphere intended.

Musical highlights must be The Rose of Hawick, where each (correct) pronunciation from Hall delivers another wave of laughter, as does his piss-take wheeze into a harmonica during a number about Bob Dylan not being quite the force he once was.

For the band, a special mention must go to Rob Childs for his Rick Astley impression and also for Ellie and Rose Mason. They must have spent the entire evening picking up whatever instrument was needed for the next song. It was all done with a seeming effortlessly and would be easy to miss the musical contribution they, and the rest of the band, made to the show's success.