Terry Alderton: Season 4

What to make of Terry Alderton? This true genre-defier sees a rowdy weekend crowd lap up his inspired improvised surrealism along with hefty bouts of lowbrow crassness. For those familiar with Alderton's work, the pleasure of seeing this manic force of nature unleash himself and his multiple personalities on the front row is seemingly well worth the ticket price.

Bounding between intricate crowdwork and deranged nuggets of vocal artistry, he creates a whirlwind of activity that is woven together to demonstrate a serious command of the form. But despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of his remarks (delivered using a classic back-turned, two voices gimmick), you can’t ignore that some of the content here is objectionable. Midget jokes, some questionable accents, and at one point his darker voice passing judgement on a woman in the front row’s breasts. 

Then again, there’s undeniably some incredible skill on display here, along with an innovative approach to standup that is completely unique and a testament to Alderton’s intuitiveness as a performer. But to say ‘not for the faint-hearted’ or ‘just ignore the mild sexism, because this is some interesting standup’ would downplay the malignancy of such accepted objectification. The comedy on display is at times so knowing that we might even be able to argue that the ‘dark voice’ represents some larger point. I want to believe that Alderton is teaching us a lesson about laughing at midget jokes. But that isn’t the tone. Ultimately, the bawdy club comic creeps in and ruins the fun.