Wednesday 15th November 2023
The beautiful thing about comedy is that it can be incredibly simple and yet incredibly clever all at the same time. Veteran comedian Gary Delaney does puns. Around 250 puns a night by all accounts. Indeed, this tour itself is cheerily titled Gary in Punderland. And while the sheer number of puns is impressive, it is the hit rate that really surprises. 90% of Delaney’s material here is excellent, and if he does occasionally drop a stinker, there are another ten great gags mere seconds away…
I didn’t know anything about Delaney going into this gig being far from a comedy expert myself. He is a regular on the panel show circuit, however, and a cursory poll of my various Whatsapp groups revealed that loads of my friends are fans of the Solihull Jester (as I seem to have christened him). Delaney takes to the stage against the backdrop of a screen showing some of his tweets over the years. Alas, I can’t remember any of them now due to the fact that I am an old and useless man but needless to say, many of them are genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny. Despite having a support act in the shape of his fellow comedian and close friend Andy Robinson, Delaney still acts as warm up to his own support act, a sweet and commendable introduction that chimes with his man-of-the-people persona. Robinson goes down a storm with the audience, his best moment coming after a particularly uninspired heckle is met with the riposte “I see the mayor of Doncaster’s made it in”.
Delaney returns to the stage and it’s clear that this is someone who has found his niche and is happy to wallow in it. While there are some narrative threads that weave the endless stream of puns together (the fact that his wife (fellow comedian Sarah Millican) hates some of his jokes, the revelation that Doncaster appears to have a penchant for the most disgusting jokes imaginable), Delaney mainly eschews any kind of thematic link instead focusing on the art of the joke. And there is artistry here. Plenty of it. I will refrain from listing jokes in this review, partly because of my aforementioned memory loss and partly because I’m sure Delaney himself doesn’t want his jokes leaked online, but such gems as ‘A guy asked me to raise money for brittle bone disease – I snapped his hand off’ are always going to go down well with me, and with everyone on a cold, November night in Donny if the audience response is anything to go by.
There is the worry that such a relentless tirade of puns would be too much for some people. However, the sheer versatility and infectious enthusiasm of the delivery here (always accompanied by Delaney’s trademark high-pitched laugh) ensure that it’s impossible not to be swept away by it all.
At the end of the day, the purpose of comedy is to make you laugh, and in that respect, this show succeeds on every level. I loved it.