REVIEW: Andrew Lawrence proves he is the Master of despair and futility

Life is pointless, people are awful, death is the only thing that will spare us from the continuing cycle of disappointment - these are the main points to take away from Andrew Lawrence's show 'Andrew Lawrence is Coming to Get You', performed at Just the Tonic last night. Sounds like a cheerful hour and a half, right? Of course, it wasn't just an hour of doom and gloom, and as far as I know nobody actually committed suicide after the show, primarily because it was so entertaining. Lawrence is a master of despair and misanthropic ranting who manages to fill the entire show with negativity, always seeing the absolute worst in every aspect of life, yet always managing to stay funny and never lose the room - instead bringing the laughter to a peak the more vitriolic his rants become.

All the ingredients are wrong with Lawrence - he's odd looking, with an unusual voice, lacking in confidence about his own ability and socially awkward. He uses all of this to his advantage, which is what makes his act a success. For example, many of the topics covered were pretty standard observational fare - relationships & marriage, children, religion, dinner parties - but he delights in finding the annoyance and futility in each, using his uniquely shrill voice to great effect during a series of extended and highly verbose rants, which are impressively delivered, often without even pausing for breath.

There was also a good deal of audience interaction, which again highlighted his social awkwardness, with rewardingly entertaining results - I think it took him about half an hour to find out what the Somalian lady at the front did for a living, and he seemed genuinely ashamed by some of the hilariously inappropriate images he conjured up whilst talking to the teenage lesbian in the front row.

There was also a concerted effort by Lawrence to 'manage expectations' of the gig. He began by announcing that there would be no great story arcs, nothing useful to be learned from the show, it would not get any more uplifting, the bar would be closed throughout and the show would last five hours without a break (anyone trying to leave would be picked off by snipers). He regularly commented upon a perceived lack of atmosphere in the room, comparing the vibe to that of a job centre and occasionally looking around the room to assess the percentage of punters who were actually laughing or 'on board' with a particular joke. In less experienced hands, this near-constant cultivation of awkwardness in the room would've killed the night, but Lawrence has been doing this for ten years now and he knows how to milk the awkwardness for laughs, which he did with skill.

As is quite often the case with Leicester audiences, they were often reluctant to respond with any enthusiasm when asked to cheer for something or answer one of Lawrence's questions, and this certainly added to his ability to joke that the room wasn't with him. If he was genuinely concerned though, the rapturous applause and whooping at the mid-show break and again at the end of the show would've eased his mind. It wasn't the packed, rowdy, drink-fuelled atmosphere of a Friday night, but a room loosely filled with relatively sober fans who clearly enjoyed the material. As part of his self-deprecating persona, Lawrence likes to paint himself as a failure career-wise, but with a fair bit of TV and radio work under his belt of late (which doesn't seem to have diluted his material at all) and the ability to command a reasonably sized audience of fans who clearly appreciate his material, I would say he is anything but. A fine show.