Stewart Francis, Weymouth Pavilion, February 5, 2016
Canadian punslinger Francis delivers sharp witty one-liners which are making us giggle and occasionally groan.
Example gag: I went to a conference on drilling the other day: BORING! The man could have a great career as a sub-editor for The Sun.
Everything is going well and the puns are coming thick and fast. They’re relatively non-controversial and very funny. But then about 20 minutes into his set Francis delivers a ‘joke’ about being a paedophile!
Most of the audience don’t react as he quickly moves on to the next tricksy piece of wordplay. But I find it difficult to laugh at him for the rest of the show. It’s offensive and the shock is heightened because he comes across as such an amiable character.
Francis does redeem himself later on with his imitations of Sean Connery which make fun of the actor’s ability to sound the same despite playing different character roles. “It’s me Sean Connery,” he announces after each ‘impression’.
There is also a clever use of subliminal back projections of messages and photographs. ‘Applause ’ is flashed across the screen and we get the beaming faces of Jimmy Carr and Donald Trump to accompany tangential putdowns.
It’s just a shame that Francis feels he needs edgy material in his set, as it would have been so much better without it.
GRAHAM JAMES
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