Chris Martin: Responsibilliness

It is, perhaps, a measure of the Chris Martin's discipline as a comic that it's a full 45 minutes into his set tonight before he finally cracks a joke about Coldplay. Well done that man. But such reserve in the face of so ubiquitous a namesake is by no means the only thing to commend a tight and well-structured routine which, though never outstanding, is consistently entertaining.

Martin sits very firmly in the tall and frivolous tales camp of comedy. He's 28 and living with his parents in their shed, and worries that he might not be living up to expectations. By way of investigating the "fictional yardsticks for happiness" we impose, he eschews the pursuit of the hallowed five stars and has set about instead writing, literally, "a four star show" – the stars in question being those awarded to McDonald's employees for competence in the key McSkill areas of cleanliness, operational excellence, service and quality. One by one, he (almost) ticks these off. It's a suitably ludicrous conceit, sending up the idea of a "themed show", while still picking up laughs via the obtuse segues required to make it stick. In this sense, Martin has his cake and scoffs it.

Oddly, there are no jokes about cakes here – which comes as a genuine surprise, since most other areas of comfy domesticity are covered: women's hair; the spelling of "quinoa"; Google auto-complete; big poos. Martin's material tends most definitely towards the humdrum, serving to keep Responsibilliness in the realms of fun but forgettable entertainment. It's pronounced "keen-waa", by the way. But you knew that already.