Review: Lloyd Langford – Why the Big Face

Welsh stand up Lloyd Langford asks Why the Big Face? in his Free Fringe show

★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
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Published 11 Aug 2018

Lloyd Langford cements his unassuming demeanour before the show has even started, patiently waiting on stage for us to file in. Granted there aren’t many places you can spring theatrically from in this tiny room but it’s typical of his unshowy personality.

He’s very much still the everyman from South Wales, despite the fact that much of what follows are his tales of gigging around the world and having meetings with pushy American producers.

This international level of interest is no surprise. After all, here in the UK he’s contributed to many comedy shows as a performer or writer, as well as doing the rounds of the comedy panel shows and working with fellow Welshman Rhod Gilbert.

So what you get here is pretty much what you’d expect from him at this point in his career, a consummate hour of funny, each punch line hitting exactly where it's intended. It’s a disparate set with no discernable theme, just simply a catch up since the last time we listened to him chat amiably. There’s huge warmth in Langford’s material too; it’s with disgruntled affection that he talks about his dad’s penchant for giving presents he’s found washed up on the beach.

There are a couple of places where Langford teasingly dips into more edgy territory, including the story on which he closes the show.