Josh Howie: Gran Slam

Taking inspiration from the four years he spent living with his grandmother, this comedy set from Josh Howie is immaculately constructed but has serious quality control issues.

Early in the performance he warns the audience, in the first of many pop cultural references, that his show is similar to The Wire: "You need to watch for six hours before you start enjoying it." If anything, the opposite is actually true. Howie is so keen to shoehorn a joke or pun of some description into every line, that an initially enjoyable show ends up feeling more like a comedy endurance test.

With so many jokes, it's not surprising that many are weak, obvious or simply ill-judged. There's still a huge amount of cracking one-liners though, particularly when he addresses his Jewish heritage, but they can't make up for the equal number of clangers. Howie also has the slightly superior belief that everybody watches exactly the same television programmes as he does - seemingly becoming confused when a reference fails to chime with every audience member.

He's a slightly nervous performer, giving the show a not-unpleasant edge - particularly when, as often happens, a joke falls flat and the laughs fail to materialise. Less pleasantly, his feckless onstage persona occasionally lapses into mean-spiritedness, losing any carefully nurtured empathy in a couple of lines.

The theme works fairly well but runs out of steam after about 45 minutes. Howie seems uncertain how to end the show and settles on a lacklustre whimper rather than a satisfying bang.