James Acaster - Prompt

Mildness isn't a quality often found in your average standup so, approaching his routine with all the frenzy and hostility of a stuffed toy, James Acaster is relatively atypical. The tousle-haired, boyish Kettering comedian still isn’t quite the finished article—his material could do with plenty of extra kick—but as it is you can’t help but be charmed, and just plain put at ease, by his calm and crafty observational wit.

No sweaty browed sweary ramblings or cheap knocking jokes from Acaster – he would rather stay at home preparing a lengthy research paper about bread than go on a lads night out. Many of his routines last for ages—his live remix of a Kettering Town FC terrace chant incorporating the principles of 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' (Kettering fans are missing a trick if they don’t seize it en masse) is brilliantly, knowingly so—but they somehow work. He keeps you chuckling consistently, even if his stuff only fleetingly tempts outright hysterics.

Like many young standups still growing in confidence, Acaster could benefit from loosening the reigns on his pre-written material a little. The best bit of the show is an ad-lib with a lady in the audience to who is apparently genuinely shocked that Subway sandwiches—“too big,” she complains—come in half sizes (we’re back to bread again). “Blew your mind,” Acaster deadpans. Mind-blowing isn’t quite the right way to sum him up just yet, but it could be, come future Fringes.