Stuart Laws Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You are Dead (1hr Show)

102793 original

This is a less than auspicious debut from Stuart Laws that's big on audience interaction at the expense of developed material. Engaging likeability and sheer relentlessness alone can't stop Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever, Until You are Dead (1hr Show), feeling as over-stretched as its title.

Laws blends observational comedy, whimsy, storytelling and improvisation, but can't really commit to any of them – which would be fine, but he's offering a sort of post-modern take before mastering the basics. The perils of opening a dishwasher mid-cycle is the launching point for him to ask the crowd for their scariest household appliance, an early cul-de-sac that unfortunately sets the pattern for much of what follows. Demanding to know people's favourite dinosaur or the “power animal” they'd choose, he riffs on the responses to little distinction, earning a certain amount of laughter from his awkward contrivances. Unfortunately, it's a tactic that palls after the first few outings.

Elaborate setups, such as him not winning the Young Ornithologist of the Year Award due to the Cold War are slowly built up, only to be punctured immediately with a surreal bit of silliness. Again, though, it becomes a strategy of diminishing returns when he repeats it. Whether he works at becoming a nimbler improviser, beefs up his prepared routines or fully embraces the risks of anti-comedy, it feels like Laws has to decide on the sort of comic he wants to be. Because at the moment he's just offering an underwhelming melange of motley bits and pieces.