Harriet Dyer: 'We'd Prefer Someone a Bit More Mainstream'

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Towards the end of her set, a weary Harriet Dyer embarks on a muffled rendition of Coldplay's Fix You. "When you try your best, but you don't succeed..." she warbles. The irony is surely not lost on her, having made a spirited attempt to elicit laughs from an audience who simply weren't rooting for her. 

The title derives from the reasons she was given for having been kicked off comedy bills in the past, but really her problems wouldn't be solved by selling out to populism. Her act isn't even particularly alternative in the first place. It's just unfortunate that she's neglected to put together a show that has any recourse to her considerable talent. 

Breathless from the start, having begun the hour with a rigorous mime of Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch's 'Good Vibrations' (the first of many musical interludes designed to anchor the theme of "fun nineties music"), Dyer never quite manages to find any sort of rhythm. More importantly, her rapport with the crowd worsens with every reference she makes to her jokes falling flat. Most of them fall on deaf ears, and the lines that do work are usually tangential asides embarked upon when her routine isn't going as planned. 

Her likeability makes the show's failure a great shame, but no amount of affability can cover up a crumbling structure and under-written punchlines.