James Sherwood - One Man and His Piano

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A pleasant enough hour of piano-based comedy with a supplementary life and death drama, James Sherwood's show opens audaciously with two opening numbers – the second a more full-on, razzmatazzy affair packed with hyperbole for what’s about to follow. The better he performs, the more chance he’s got of flogging his piano at the end of the festival, he reasons: a bold gambit all told, and one he can’t fully do justice to.

As befits a Radio 4 regular who specialises in penning topical satire, there’s a tune for David Cameron on coping with coalition government, followed by an exasperated broadside against Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare incentives for married couples. Elsewhere, Sherwood mixes it up with some dream-inspired whimsy that aspires to—and falls endearingly short of—The Beatles' Yesterday, as well as a fun little number about Chemical Ali, the recently hanged cousin of Saddam Hussein.

Unfortunately, virtually every tune feels like an amusing conceit stretched out over a decreasingly funny ditty, with precious few of the rhymes or individual lines beckoning a revisit. Moreover, there’s much less variation and fewer of the droll set pieces that broke up Sherwood’s 2009 show. In a significant departure though, he devotes a long sequence to his recent heart scare, an intense, disturbing experience during which his vital organ briefly stopped. Inspiring Sherwood to treat life less seriously, it clearly triggered an epiphany of sorts, but sharing this with the audience sits rather awkwardly with the material preceding it.