Presented by Enter Closer
@ The Big Slapple – Apollo Theatre
MONDAY 5th March (until Sunday 11 March)

I went to Simon Taylor’s show on a Monday night suffering from a head cold. In the mood I was in, I was not expecting to enjoy it, or anything; I just wanted my bed. But perhaps, as Taylor was to say during the show, the secret to happiness is low expectations.

Not that low expectations were required for his show. Like a bucket of icy water on a sleeping baby, Simon woke me from my daze with his intelligent jokes. His seemingly spontaneous dances made my sore eyes smile. His myth-busting provoked forth little fountains of mirthful snot. I was a wretched mess of laughter.

Monday nights aren’t known as peak crowd-pulling time. Even though it was a relatively quiet night, however, Taylor threw himself into his performance. At one point he booty-shook so hard that his microphone pack fell out of his pocket and broke.

He is a very talented dude. His dancing skills are surprisingly good, and his singing was easy on the ears. He is a comedian who uses his brain, and his psychology degree, rather than situation and slapstick. His rants about coffee and language were particularly impressive, demonstrating that he can talk for a very long time on one breath and showing the genuine intelligence behind his comedic persona. He sung songs about love and happiness, deconstructed his psychology textbook, danced, told jokes, had quiet moments of faux audience introspection, performed magic tricks and busted myths. And was hilarious the entire time. Coming from a family where vegetarianism is rife, I enjoyed his list of vegetarian foods: fake bacon (facon), fake sausage (fausage), and fake duck … fuck. The show concluded with Taylor giving us his promised list of ten things he knew about us; it was a clever device and gave a pleasing sense of closure, as well as some final laughs.

I hung around the foyer afterwards, hoping to get a quick interview; of all the people meandering out of the theatre, none was missing a smile. Taylor was mixing it with the crowd, and I asked him for a last word. He said to “Tell people to take a chance on my show”. I say, don’t take a chance on this show; make an educated assessment of whether you want to spend 50 minutes laughing your snot out. The choice is yours. But do it.