one4review | On 24, Aug 2018

Some shows move you, some shows make you laugh, rare shows manage both – and occasionally, as with this, both in the same sentences.

Steve Day, best known as Britain’s only deaf comedian, does have to start off explaining his deafness. This is partly because recent massive improvements in hearing aids, and the ability (lost for years) to hear music, is what fed his nostalgia for the father of his youth, complaining about Top Of The Pops, or struggling to know how to make small-talk with Day’s then girlfriend.

What Day has done is let this emotion fuel his comedy; a tough challenge, especially when faced with losing his parent to this horrible condition.

Day’s childhood anecdotes are fun and silly, reminding the mixed age audience of just how much the past – the 70s of his childhood, and the 40s of his father’s youth – really is a foreign country. It is, however, where his father once again resides.

I assume most of the audience had some understanding of dementia, but it might have been useful to have a few more illustrations of just how it is affecting dad, in the here and now. I am confident Day could have done so with the gentle, loving, respectful humour that pervades his material.

****
Reviewed by Gill
Laughing Horse at Espionage
13:45
Until 26th