Jonny Pelham: Before and After

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Jonny Pelham speaks the language of an outsider. Having been born with popliteal pterygium syndrome (a cleft palate condition that affects one in 300,000 people), he's grown accustomed to the outcast's perspective cruelly thrust upon him. Does any of this make him pity himself, or prevent him from performing brilliantly expressive standup? Not one bit.

His abilitiy to provoke a laugh has evolved from a coping mechanism during awkward teenage years into a professional career, one in which he can project his insecurities on stage and find solace in the affirmation an audience offers. There's an underlying, and endearing, vulnerability to his act, which at moments makes you forget you're watching a show – he's a natural guy, and he's simply sharing witty anecdotes from his formative years. Conjuring genuinely hilarious images (such as his description of his childhood "gang", in which the cultural differences between himself and his four Bangladeshi friends made him seem more like their lawyer), he paints a wry picture of life as a partially disabled adolescent.

He's emotionally receptive without being mawkish, and his speech impediment gives him a gentle, lethargic delivery (presumably a happy accident rather than comic design). There is a tendency in his work to lay the groundwork for a joke, but then fail to formulate the phrasing necessary to execute the punchline; he'll carefully thread the semantics of an anecdote only to stumble in his wording, losing the punch and the laugh it deserves. Despite this, Before and After remains a highly promising (given his relative inexperience) and wonderfully self-effacing show.