An evening in the company of the smiley Russell Howard always lifts one’s spirits and his latest show, Don’t Tell the Algorithm, proves no exception.
But first he’s going to get a few things off his chest as he bounces around the stage – namely, the state of the world. “What a wonderful time to be alive,” he says drily, as in just the first 10 minutes he manages to mention Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Bonnie Blue, ICE agents, Iran and Brooklyn Beckham. It’s a breathless performance and gag-heavy, and sets the tone for the evening – silliness laced with seriousness in a trademark energetic performance.
Although Howard’s raison d’être is positivity and appreciating what we have, his material has grown more political over the years, and here he rails against the left and right (although mostly right) and their soundbite politics.
Howard has been accused on being a “beige” comic; I think that’s unfair, but I’d doubt he’d ever take an unpopular view on anything – although there are hints and feints in his material to not following the party line on some subjects. I’d love to hear this avowed liberal steam into one or two hot issues without fear of being cancelled – but that’s not his shtick and besides, he does his Everyman observational comedy so well.
Back to the positivity: his family, as ever in his material, pop up several times in the evening, and he talks about becoming a dad, going to NCT classes and how wonderful nature is in providing sustenance for babies through breast milk. (Although, this being a Russell Howard show, there plenty of smut about liking boobs too.)
The show’s theme comes to the fore about an hour into the 90-minute performance, where he expands on how we should focus on making human, individual connections rather than being slaves to the algorithm on our phones and tablets. The evening loses some momentum here – one or two of the stories about how daft some of the people in his life are don’t fully convince – but Howard rounds things off with a clever callback.
It’s a slick, well-drilled show – and it will put a smile on your face.
