This show came with such promise. Situated in The Box at Assembly George Square, people in the queue were buzzing with excitement at seeing character comedian ‘Mad Ron’, Uxbridge’s third hardest man. The mood coming out of the show was entirely different: flat, muted, with a hint of confusion – as if the audience had been robbed of energy.
Those same words could also be used to describe the show itself. In these hard economic times, Mad Ron is here to teach us to be more financially independent by promoting the benefits for a not-so-honest day’s work.
With more than a passing resemblance to Phil Mitchell, Mad Ron’s curriculum involves English (his autobiography), Maths (from currency to pints conversions), and Ethics (who is it better to steal from?) – all coming with a range of ‘jokes’ and anti-jokes. There was the occasional line that elicited a genuine laugh from people, but more often each punchline was met with some weird hiss laughing from a woman in the front row, eager to appear polite.
Unless I was missing a joke that the audience seemed equally excluded from, there just wasn’t that much there. The gruff, ‘ardman persona failed to cover up flubbed delivery on a number of jokes, or mask the ones where he petered off before the punchline.
I want to believe that this was just a bad night, and could be convinced to see that, just maybe, there could be something there – he was nominated for Best Show at Leicester Comedy Festival after all – but there certainly wasn’t much on display this Sunday night to persuade me. Mad Ron might have ideas about how to prosper in these hard economic times, but my own advice would be to save the money on a ticket unless you’re an existing Mad Ron fan, as I don’t think this show is going to win you over.
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