Elis James: Do You Remember the First Time?

There's a moment surprisingly early in Elis James’s set where the shrieks from the audience’s youthful female contingent reach such a pitch that you (a) worry about your own auditory well-being and (b) begin to wonder just how successful James could become.

The Courtyard Attic is a small and famously stuffy room but that just helps to highlight the impressive hold this genial Welshman exerts over a crowd who might otherwise be clamouring for the exits at around the midway point. James is a mesmerising storyteller, developing what begin as fairly unpromising set-ups about his formative experiences—first kiss, first boiled sweet, first encounter with a veteran ITV sports presenter—into full-blown, almost theatrical epics.

One frequently overheard complaint about Fringe shows is that, while admirably witty and well-meaning, they don’t actually make people laugh – really laugh, so the lungs hurt. No such problems here, as James rings every last drop of comedy from his tales of adolescent low-jinks. He’ll be down on all fours frantically banging the stage floor several minutes into an anecdote about sweet-related asphyxiation; meanwhile much of his audience is doubled over, crimson-cheeked and unable to breathe either. Impressively, he re-inflicts this exquisite form of torture several times within the hour.

Some of these stories have clearly been in the set for some time, and that well of youthful anecdotes must eventually run dry. But then you can imagine James with a team of writers and his own TV vehicle in the not-too-distant future. Those formative disasters may well be his fortune.