James Acaster and Stephanie Lang at The Lowry Review
James Acaster and Stephanie Lang
The Lowry, Manchester
24 May 2015
Reviewed by Hannah Abbott
Ever wondered how comedians make their show? How they know what will be funny and what won’t? Well they hold a preview night with a normal paying audience and just take notes as they go along. These preview nights can be very hit and miss on the comedy factor because quite often you are witnessing untested material. Although funny at parts Stephanie Lang opened the show in an awkward manner and only managed to get a minority of the audience on board. As there was no connection there was limited interactivity throughout the performance and she offered a limited number of laughs. I think had this not been a preview it would have been more rehearsed and could have been a lot funnier. Preparing for her new show ‘nicompoop’ she has some strange stories and props and a very daft song that did make us laugh but it may have just been that she was stood in front of an audience singing a song she wrote about a newt (with actions).
Unfortunately Stephanie struggled to keep the audience’s attention throughout her performance as demonstrated by the group of students sat by me that were on their mobiles for much of the show.
After a small interval James Acaster was on. The audience were like putty in his hands, laughing just from his intro welcoming himself on stage. A true showman had everyone cheering and he worked the audience like a dream. Also previewing material for the Edinburgh festival and his tour, which will be coming back to Manchester Lowry in the Autumn, James is one to keep an eye out for.
James has already been on shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats and he is great at observational humour. His stories are fantastic and link pretty seamlessly together making for a great night. As it was a preview he was commenting on how the performance was playing out, how we reacted in comparison to other audiences and quite frankly, as always in my opinion, our Manchester audience always amazes people because we always laugh at things that are unexpected as well as the punch lines.
This performance was held in the Studio where the Lowry hold many of their comedy performances. It is a relatively small room with unassigned seats, so you choose where you want to sit when you get in for many of the comedy nights. When James Acaster returns to the Lowry with his tour show ‘Represent’ on the 18 October he will be playing in a much larger room to hopefully a much larger audience. So if you want a night of laughs with some strange adlibs go join him at the Lowry in October. You won’t regret it.
I rate Stephanie Lang 2 out of 5 and hopefully her rehearsed show is much better. I rate James Acaster 4 out of 5 if this was just a preview I’d love to see the tour!
Overall Rating: 3/5
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000
