Carl Hutchinson: Acceptable

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An immediately and immensely likeable comedian, Hutchinson is also attractive, 25 years old, and the possessor a soft, almost crooning Geordie voice. 

Acceptable, is an inventory of things Hutchinson finds unacceptable – from work-colleagues overly eager to socialise, to babies having their names signed for them on the bottom cards. His “innocuous, inconsequential list,” contains some nicely-observed lines on life’s minutiae, like the way men never throw away their underpants, but merely relegate them, and the politics of eating mezze. An extended riff on student debt got an especially enthusiastic response from the show’s youthful audience. Once or twice, however, the targets for Hutchinson's humour verge on being hackneyed; after all, it's not difficult to make fun of One Direction. 

The ancient walls of the Just The Tonic venue are by no means soundproof and Hutchinson was forced to do battle with a very noisy show playing next door. That his routine was able to overcome the distraction is a testimony to its quality, despite being not exactly ground-breaking.