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Latitude 2018

Devil May Care

Marcus Brigstocke

Genre: Stand-Up

Venue: Latitude Festival Comedy Tent

Festival:


Low Down

Blisteringly funny multi-award winning stand-up Marcus Brigstocke returns to Latitude Festival in 2018 with a hilarious new show. As seen on Argumental, Live At The Apollo, Have I Got News For You and Mock the Week.

Review

There was palpable disappointment in the audience when we were told that Marcus Brigstocke wasn’t going to be appearing, and that a new comedian, Lucifer was going to be coming in his place. The applause as this red-faced, horned man stepped onstage was muted, and it was a minute or so before we caught on that this was of course Brigstocke, who had invented a new comedy persona. Impressively he didn’t drop his character or silly voice for even a minute (until he said goodbye at the very end).

 

The conceit of Lucifer trying his hand at stand-up worked very well, he had good banter with the audience and the piece was loosely structured around the story of Lucifer’s fall from heaven and his relationship with God. A show for believers this was not. He made lots of very funny jibes at the audience about their middle class guilt, and bemoaned the fact that he had to send everyone to hell for not bringing their bag for life to Waitrose.

 

One poor unfortunate 16 year old lad walked in down the front with a box of chicken and chips, and proceeded to be the butt of Brigstocke’s jokes for the entire show. I don’t know if the poor boy will ever brave a comedy show again, after the repeated mentions Brigstocke made about his testicles and how they rule his brain.

 

Despite the set up, which was enjoyably novel, this show was basically Brigstocke’s usual left-wing political comedy, and with Brexit debacles taking place and Donald Trump on UK soil, he had plenty of fodder. One particularly good joke involved likening Brexit negotiations to Theresa May’s running a marathon wearing a shed, which everyone thinks is funny to begin with, but then it just looks really hard and sad, and despite running into things and her nearly dying of exhaustion, she just won’t put it down, because of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

 

We were treated to some of the things you now don’t get sent to hell for- such as being gay, being an atheist (God doesn’t really mind apparently), and helpfully some of the things you do get sent to hell for: having a flag in your profile picture, not picking up your dog’s shit and people who say pacifically instead of specifically. (The last one is definitely fair!)

 

It’s nice when a comedian deviates from the usual boring standup, and Brigstocke certainly looked and acted the part. He really does seem to be the darling of Latitude festival – you could hardly move for seeing his face up on a screen somewhere, opining or making people laugh.

Published