Tom Allen: Indeed

Tom Allen: still suave, still gay and still trapped with the rest of us. He’s stuck more than ever now, with a recent breakup forcing him to move back in with his parents and endure the hell of suburbia. He also spends most of the show locked in a toilet, but that’s another matter. 

Allen’s line in contempt finds endless targets in this world of driving tests and leisure centres, each barb delivered with poise and a devastating twist. He is such a consummate performer that the venom tastes sweet, and his picking on his parents’ friends never feels cruel as it tends to see-saw with seething self-loathing.

He recalls Kenneth Williams, not just for the accent and orientation, but because the overarching gag is how the world refuses to give him the regard he feels he deserves. No stage is big enough for Allen, but here he is, trapped in a recently refurbished WC. 

Expect that to change soon. Allen is a known name on Radio 4 and the like, but has the poise of a man who has already made it big. He is sometimes stuck with the label ‘light entertainment’ (and there is a sly joke about how he’s uninterested in the smut of other camp acts) but that’s more an acknowledgement of how he’s clearly heading for headliner status and knows it.

Even after tough times, he still thinks he’s better than the masses. And the masses would have to agree.