Jim Smallman

“I don’t feel I have enough friends. So I thought I’d do a gig about making friends and by the end I’ll be friends with all 45 of you.’ Jim Smallman’s set is unapologetically, shamelessly life-affirming. He is, he informs his audience, attempting to balance out the misery of the set the year before – he wants his audience to leave feeling good about life.

Smallman is being overly harsh on himself here – this declaredly fresh brand of optimistic comedy is less of a departure than he pretends. He has always been a story-teller of warmth and humanity, particularly on the subject of his personal life, from which Smallman draws most of his material. Like many proud parents, he can’t resist discussing his “brilliant” daughter – about the time she bettered him in a battle of wits for instance, or the precocity of her puns. Sometimes his stories sag a little, weighed down by his continued expressions of enthusiasm and, as comedy (rather than just a spot of nice storytelling),  such routines are less successful. But they are delivered with such guileless joy you can't help but moved all the same – just not always to belly-laughter.

His pleasure in juvenile jokes is still very much in evidence; there are some knob-oriented gags and musings over any number puerile activities but Smallman, for all his tattoos, exposed y-fronts and razzled edges, resembles more an overgrown puppy. And who can resist making friends with a puppy?