Nathan Caton review – a cosy cruise down the middle of the road
Soho theatre, London
The charmingly self-mocking standup is not short of decent gags but appears almost devoid of strong opinions. He may not offend but he certainly exasperates
What do you want your comedy to deliver? Laughs, in the first instance – and sometime Live at the Apollo man Nathan Caton can be relied upon to deliver them. He’s got a winning laid-back manner and a handful of solidly constructed set-pieces to which few could take exception. But I’d welcome a little more creative ambition. Caton’s topics, personality and opinions are all unexceptional. I’m not trying to offend anyone, he repeatedly assures us – to which the only response is: more’s the pity.
That’s not to say comedy has to be outspoken, just that Caton is too attached to the middle of the road. Never more so than when, midway through the show, he talks politics. Others may get less frustrated than I do by his “they’re all as bad as each other” perspective, or his lamely apolitical joke about cherry-picking the best of what each party has to give. But there’s no forgiving the weakness of gags such as the one about Boris Johnson being “the political equivalent of Mr Bean”. (On the UK’s most joked-about man, we’ve a right to expect better than that.) Elsewhere, a section on Caton’s recent house move leans on cosy class cliches about cardigans and The Archers.
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