Gavin Webster: Bill Hicks Wasn't Very Good

If you name your show Bill Hicks Wasn't Very Good you'd better have something pretty impressive to back it up. Gavin Webster doesn't – but at least he's fully aware of this. 

The title follows on from Webster's effort last year All Young People Are Cunts so he does have form when it comes to incendiary titles. It seems to be nothing more than a marketing ploy though – the hallowed name of Hicks takes a while to crop up and only around five minutes of the set actually relates to the artist formerly known as Goatboy.

In place of the promised controversy is a loosely connected series of comedy riffs on everything from the Queen to underworld villains. They're often tenuous and any relevance to Hicks is stretched at best (“you know, Hicks liked Elvis,” being a particularly brazen example). 

All in all, there's little here for hardcore Hicks fans to fear. The only comedy followers who might want to avert their gaze are those who worship at the alter of Russell Kane or Des Bishop, both of whom are negatively, and unsubtly, referenced.  

The gags themselves are fine but comparing them with the work of Hicks—and by quoting some of his most famous lines—there is only ever going to be one winner. It's not Webster.

If nothing else it will be interesting to hear what his title will be next year. Chris Hoy is Overrated, maybe? Or perhaps Edinburgh: What a Shithole.