To be fair, it was a decent crowd considering Addison isn’t really anyone’s favourite comedian. Long gone are the days when a Mock of the Week regular was enough to guarantee a sold-out show; victims of our own success perhaps, as over the last few years we have been able to attract a wealth of top comedy talent to the Fair City.
Addison himself described his audience as a ‘circle of life’ and looking around the hall I saw what he meant – the crowd was made up of all ages, no doubt attracted by his variable TV work.
Doing his own warm up, he started the evening with a rather amusing story about his last visit to Tayside and in particular, an evening spent in Dundee. Addison had clearly done his homework with various references to local news and landmarks.
It was certainly a good way to win over the locals but after the initial ten minutes Addison started to stumble and stutter and soon reverted back to his well-rehearsed topical material.
Addison delivered a lecture-style of stand-up that covered a wide range of topics, in parts very political but never really pushing boundaries.
He had great stage presence, even if he moved across it like a rather camp string puppet.
After the interval, Addison gave us a near-perfect hour of comedy covering everything from tattoos to immigration, rolling from one topic to another without ever breaking the flow of his well-crafted show.
Overall, a very enjoyable evening: this may well have been my first full Chris Addison experience but on this merit, it will not be my last.
@ComedyReviewer 7/10