Luke McQueen: Double Act

It must be fascinating to live like Luke McQueen, unencumbered by the sort of crushing embarrassment that stops regular folks throwing off our dull careers, and clothes, to embark on a life in top-flight entertainment. Or whatever this is.

Double Act is a show built for a pokey Portakabin, as it’s debatable whether McQueen’s act would make any sense in a bigger, better-filled room. It doesn’t always make sense in this small one, in truth. “I did this show to 11 people the other day,” he says, playing the tortured artist just a touch too convincingly.

It probably won’t help to hear that the best two bits of this show are when the host isn’t onstage at all. The loose (and, lordy, it’s loose) theme is that McQueen has become furiously envious of his old double-act partner, now a massive TV star.

It kicks off with a promising conceit in which the comic refuses to actually appear due to the humiliatingly small crowd and talks his (very) new partner through the opening instead, like a comedy control tower. Still, we see a whole lot of him eventually, as do several unsuspecting locals during the other big highlight: some gasp-inducingly naughty video footage. Such behaviour shouldn’t be condoned, but is horribly compelling.

Elsewhere it’s a glorious mess of knowing gags and egomania, probably aimed more at making fellow comics laugh than audiences. Some people look confused, others wet themselves – as indeed does McQueen. That’s sort of his signature thing. If you like that, you’ll love this.