Mat Ewins: Day Job

“This is the least professional I've been on stage, Fest man. You can quote me on that. And I did a kid's show with a boner.”

Spotting a reviewer amongst the audience would throw many a burgeoning young standup off their game, but to Mat Ewins the sight of a poorly shielded notepad is a gift. With its succession of precisely orchestrated failures, for Day Job to undergo any level of professional scrutiny contributes greatly to our shared sense of disaster. The show's narrative becomes that if he fails to receive a solid star rating for this folly, he'll have no hope of securing a lasting legacy outside the pie factory in which he works. The more the performer attempts to rectify his situation, the deeper into crazed despondency he sinks.

There are echoes of Harry Hill in Ewins' approach to cabaret, none of which makes very much sense at all. His mishaps are so convincing that it takes a good twenty minutes before many of tonight's punters accept they've been laughing with him all along. It would be valid to complain that he's come a little short of anything resembling actual material here, but Ewins overcomes such objections through sheer force of personality alone.