Carey Marx: Laziness and Stuff

Carey Marx has been in standup comedy for over 20 years, but he's beginning to think that no one has been listening to him. In fact, the problem is wider than that: no one seems to be listening to standup comedians in general. At all.

Of course, comedy has become infinitely more popular in recent years, but the age-old problems remain. A guilty few still hinder female comics' efforts to shake off outdated prejudices. The hack comics can still trade on the same jokes as they did 30 years ago. Marx is beginning to think that standups are doing it all wrong. They're being too kind to society's idiots.

It is on this theme that Laziness and Stuff is loosely based, and as a premise it makes for a surprisingly insightful hour of comedy. Marx, a bit like Stewart Lee before him, spends a fair chunk of time analysing comedy and comic techniques, flagging up tired old clichés and twisting them into properly brutal new shapes.

What's more, Marx's comic style has noticeably changed in recent years. Gone are the rapid-fire one-liners, which have been traded in for a more laidback, observational storytelling approach. He still pushes at the borders of taste and decency while wearing his trademark grin, but the stylistic change makes this routine a more satisfying experience than, for example, 2009's The Doom Gloom Boom.

All of which combines to make this year's set a genuinely funny and interesting hour of comedy.