Review: Mat Ewins: What Sorry? My Mistake! The Doors Are Not Open; The Show Has Been Cancelled. Do Not Have Your Tickets Ready!

No-one else does comedy quite like Mat Ewins. An Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee last year for Adventureman 7, his spoofy defence of pure silliness, the multimedia comedian returns with another hour of technologically-fuelled standup. It’s wonderfully intricate, deceptive stuff, all cloaked in Ewins’ scrappy, self-deprecating, devil-may-care style.

The concept, this time around, is that Ewins is giving his audience a tour of the future, where he runs a newspaper on Mars. It’s a wacky idea, but one that actually works extraordinarily well, allowing Ewins to freely riff on a wide-ranging collection of material.

A lot of it involves the audience. So we get Ewins challenging an audience member to a futuristic e-sport, catching falling kittens on their heads. We get Ewins staging a futuristic play about a banshee hunter, using the audience as actors. And we get Ewins subtly but relentlessly implying that one audience member has an amorous attraction to weasels. Sounds weird, but have faith: it really works.

The hour’s best, and most remarkable skit, is when Ewins takes a photo of the audience, then uses face recognition to capture their profiles and insert them into his skits. I won't say more than that. 

It’s super-smart comedy stuffed full of sly jokes that rewards you more the closer you pay attention, delivered with confidence and charisma.