Al Murray The Pub Landlord - Barrel of Fun: Review

Written by: Jay Richardson
Published: Friday 3rd December 2010

After so many years as The Pub Landlord, Al Murray continues to set the bar for audience interaction, gloriously indulging himself with the "fat blokes" and "beautiful jocks" in his front rows, before taunting a 14-year-old boy with a forbidden pint. Tried and tested though plenty of his putdowns are, the sharpness of Murray's ad-libbed wit still impresses and belies the boorish insensitivity of the character, his feats of memory in returning to specific jibes throughout the show a marvel.

The challenge for Murray is to make his prepared material appear distinct from previous shows and his television work, a particularly sticky problem for a stuck-in-his-ways Little Englander like The Guv'nor. Suffice to say that anyone who's seen Murray before won't be stunned by anything in this show.

Scooting on stage on his motorised bar before a giant Union Jack on an electronic screen, Murray remains a commanding stage presence. He has several excellent gags post-opening banter, on his misguided charity efforts for example. Still, fears arise when he announces his first routine will follow-on from last year's chat-up demonstration - the killer line that seals the deal.

Tonight, he was blessed by the having the 14-year-old's unaccompanied mother as a sounding board, cue for much tutting about Broken Britain. Carving across the stage, pretending to be a shark he's hilarious and he offers ample reminder of his old act as a sound effects comic, whistling, beeping and parping his way through a series of nudge-nudge allusions to sex. If his three ingredients for the killer line are unremarkable, you intuit that there'll be a killer payoff arriving to justify the build-up. Sadly, that's not the case.

The Landlord's finest moments often come when Murray affords a glimpse of the character's bluster and denial cracking a little, revealing the whimpering vulnerability beneath. There's a flash of this when he lets his musings on widespread public worry call his own virility into question, but he can only let his guard drop an instant.

Immediately, he's off again into classic Landlord territory, trying to establish a new rabble-rousing catchphrase - religion has gone "bonkers, mental" - before letting his guard slip once more as he navigates himself up a cul-de-sac of Islamic condemnation that undermines his own political compass. Elsewhere, he's tremendous value building up a head of steam at an innocuous subject like travelators in airports, the release when he finally arrives at the punchline all the more explosive for the layers of incremental detail he's established with his pride in Great British engineering.

Painting The Pope in the broadest Nazi strokes is so unsubtle it's gently laughable and he's more effective attacking the pontiff over the Catholic Church's record on paedophile priests. He's still employing a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but Murray applies extra vigour to nailing this stock target. He even tackles the hoariest subject in the stand-up book, the differences between men and women, affording it fresh bite by identifying one of the great universal unsaids in relationships. Encouraging the men in the audience to bellow it at their partners en masse creates a delicious undercurrent of prickly frisson.

All of which makes for a decent finish after a big set piece that even Murray doesn't seem convinced by, a warning for the nation to be on their guard against squirrels that involves persuading a punter to caper around the stage with a giant acorn. Even a topical callback in the encore can't prevent it feeling overly forced. The Pub Landlord's longevity has been won on merit but one feels Murray might well benefit from a new direction.

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 29th November 2010