<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/?attachment_id=237" rel="attachment wp-att-237"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-237 alignright" title="stephen_merchant" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/stephen_merchant-200x150.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="150" /></a>We went to see him at the Derngate last night and I think he was the best one man comedy show I have ever seen. Throughout the public success of BBC’s The Office, Ricky Gervais took centre stage however it is very apparent from Stephen Merchant’s show that he is in fact the wordsmith and Gervais is the performer. It’s like the puppet master comes out from behind the curtain and shows all of his skills in terms of brilliant story telling, precise comedic timing and maintaining a thread of several stories running throughout the evening.
He does find a lot of his comedy in his height (6 feet 7 inches); he also plays on his apparent geekiness and a certain meaness with money that he refers to being careful.
There were several occasions when I hadn’t finished laughing at the previous humourour epithet before he’s cracked open another storyline. The time just flew by and he left his audience, especially me, wanting more but like all brilliant performers he left the stage on a high.
I’d be interested from anyone else who shared the experience…