Matt Winning: Ragnarok

"There's no meaning behind it. It's just lots of jokes." No, that's not a disgruntled reviewer's summary of Matt Winning's Ragnarok. It's his own, uttered right before a lot of clever (but admittedly meaningless) jokes. 

This reductionist attitude betrays the Seinfeld-style minutiae he deals in. There's value in the little things, so a lack of meaning doesn't equate to a lack of insight on his part. His standup material itself is all enveloped around a framing device; Winning's space-age descendent, Oscar, appears intermittently (after a quick costume change) to warn his ancestor that this very show will change the world. It's a cutesy artifice, giving the show an elaborate setup and a nice self-referential awareness. Sadly the conceit becomes more entertaining than the content, and without the futuristic vignettes the standup would seem pretty ordinary by itself. 

It's certainly a marked improvement on the Scottish comedian's Fringe outing last year, with far more consistency in the punchlines and a clearer comic voice. His persona now is one of inquisitive enthuasism; he's the champion of all the trivialities that interest him. Whether it's passionately explaining why corn on the cob is his favourite food (even going as far as to suggest an expansion of the brand: chicken on the cob anyone?), or doing a show-and-tell with his clay pigeons, he's unburdened by the cynicism that inhibits a lot of observational comedy. It's just a shame that the character comedy backdrop doesn't represent the main event.