Terry Alderton: All Crazy Now

A Terry Alderton show is a bit of a rabbit hole at the best of times. And, on tonight's showing, this might just be the best of times for a comedian nominated for the Perrier award in 1999. Since then we've had winners who have amply demonstrated what an artful and cerebral form comedy can be. But none of them has been genuinely, vicerally terrifying, like Alderton.

What's perhaps so unsettling is the shaky ground Alderton's comic persona stands on. One minute he's a self-referential tricksy formalist, the next he's a brash club comic ready to knock seven comedic bells out of a heckler. One minute he's telling jokes about being medicated, the next he's on to chicken pole vaults (nope, no idea either). It's not that some jokes are crass and others are clever, or that sometimes he hits gold and sometimes he falls flat. It's more that he is both of these things, held in some weird tension.

And, boy, does he sell it visciously. With collaborator Johnny Spurling, this is a tight, frenetic hour right from the off. The pair's double-act sections are a highlight, channeling Morecambe and Wise as a bickering couple – only with real venom. Alderton, alone, flicks schitzophrenically between his multiple personas without letting any of them feel like a character, and we're given barely milliseconds to stop and think about the barrage of quips, nonsequiturs and flights of fancy. But this isn't comedy for thinking about. It's visceral comedy for feeling – and for fearing. Totally weird, man.