Paul Savage Finds Every Joke in the Bible

Don’t come to this show—which is playing as part of the Free Fringe—expecting a revelation. Standup Paul Savage doesn’t unearth a treasure trove of hitherto unacknowledged rib-tickling gags in the Book of Genesis. This hour is really about teasing out and gently poking fun at the language, oddities and eccentricities—to modern ears—of episodes from the Bible.

Savage steers clear of anything too edgy or political in chasing his religion-related laughs. He doesn’t try to be topical. Mostly it’s just a case of, "And here’s another unintentionally funny bit". The fact—as he imparts at the start—that his father was a Baptist minister never amounts to much more than an anecdote about his dad’s exasperation at Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

But this relatability is part of Savage’s easy, blokey persona, which keeps us smiling, if never quite splitting our sides. He uses sitcoms and action movies as popular touchstones for well-known Bible stories, from the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Ark to Sodom & Gomorrah. The vengeful God of the Old Testament is re-styled as a Ray Winstone-esque East End gangster.

It’s a shame that the material never gets meatier. But this is an easy-going hour of entertainment. Savage gives an effective everyman performance, keeping it light, amusing and engaging. It’s clear from the detail he goes into that he knows his Bible inside-out. But if he has the Good Book in one hand, he’s clutching a pint and a packet of crisps in the other.