Tom Deacon: Deaconator

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As a Radio 1 presenter and former winner of the Chortle Student Comedian of the Year award, Tom Deacon's standup has often been intimately tied to the travails, habits and vices of being young. Now 26, circumstances have forced Deacon to grapple with the prospect of actually growing up a bit, but not before he performs one final tribute to his younger self and achieves something he never has before. The Herculean task in question? Completing an entire World Cup 2010 sticker album.

It should be understood that this is not merely a key routine of the show, but the show itself. Almost every joke spins off from the central narrative of Deacon explaining his tangled, nostalgia-laden history with football sticker albums, his mentally scarring experiences with 'swaps,' and the ever-escalating difficulties he encounters in his attempt to finally put his childhood obsession to rest.

Because the vast preponderance of material deals with this one story, Deaconator feels smaller and shorter than it actually is, coming off more like an extended joke than an entire performance. However, Deacon is a warm and canny comedian, who manages to wring every possible drop of empathy towards his unlikely pursuit, making us care even if we never spent our youths gluing pictures of footballers into cheap, glossy magazines. Though light on ambition or variety of subject matter, the story of Deacon's personal quest will have many quietly cheering for him by the end, when the audience is rewarded for their attention with... free football stickers.