Colin Hoult: Colin is playing at the Pleasance Courtyard, Cabaret Bar venue until the 25th of August. Colin is a departure from previous shows, laying the platform for Hoult to peel back the comfort of performing in character and step into a new era of acceptance to show us who he is.
Colin Hoult has ADHD. As he says, there never was a name for it in the 80s when he grew up in unforgiving Nottingham. Labels beyond much more obvious conditions didn’t exist and therefore he was simply touted by family and friends alike as ‘not right’. Don’t fear though, this isn’t a pity show or a piece that goes out of its way to demand you understand the nuances of the condition. If anything, he is just preparing you for why his show, if you were to remove the influence of ADHD, really only has one very humorous anecdote which revolves around an incident on Christmas Day that upon reflection for him confirmed that, when he thinks about it, the majority of his immediate family are also probably ‘not right’. Everything else that occurs comes zinging out of his wonderful brain seemingly tangentially. From the excellent crowd work, reminiscent of his hilarious former character and vehicle for much of his live comedy work over the last decade, Anna Mann. Yet, as he has clearly striven to do, it is no longer her, it’s Colin, accepting that Mann was formerly both a magnifying glass and shield to protect the real him and allow him to behave mischievously with the audience. So we have a Colin laid bare, accepting and loving it.
In small doses, it is also a touching and vulnerable show, again things we never really saw before in a Colin Hoult act. It’s something of an expectation that comedians now draw you in with all the laughs and then slowly reveal that they have been leading you down the path to enlightenment or touching emotion on a certain subject and Colin achieves that here in his hour, without the cloying, overbearing manner with which it is sometimes done. We hear about his insecurities and worries for his own children and there’s a touching tribute to his late father, all done with style and a keen appreciation of how far to take an audience before ensuring we are laughing again.
Colin Hoult: Colin is a superb show, showcasing the talents of a man who is in his prime. It rattles along at breakneck speed and he achieves the rarest of tricks in that the laughter never seems to stop. Tittering, wheezing, crying with laughter on repeat for the full hour. Brilliant.
