David Longley: My Favourite Things

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"It’s gonna get serious from time to time," warns Derby born comedian David Longley near the start of his show My Favourite Things. And he’s not lying. Anyone who uses the theme of cognitive dissonance—the ability to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time—as their starting point would be wise to let the audience know.

That’s not to say this isn’t a funny hour. There are jokes—real jokes, as Longley points out, with punchlines and everything—as well as pointed observations about relationships and family life. Longley has a smooth, quick delivery, and he quickly strikes up a good rapport with the audience: you feel immediately involved but never threatened. He has a great routine on so-called "harmless" racism that challenges just what you are and aren’t allowed to say, and he’s not afraid to stoop to downright silliness—especially in an absurd CBBC video that opens the show.

But as the hour progresses, the gags come less frequently as Longley’s references grow increasingly personal: he talks of the mixture of love and resentment he feels towards his two young kids, and the realisation that his parents weren’t quite the people he thought they were. He delivers it all with such disarming bluntness that sometimes it’s difficult to laugh, but there’s always plenty to think about, and things get darker still when he moves onto the topic of his dying grandfather. He refuses to give the show a simplistically happy ending but, even so, still manages to bring things together with a positive message about embracing life in all its messy splendour.