Tom Neenan: The Haunting at Lopham House

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It's a delight to imagine the research that must have gone into Tom Neenan's first solo hour, The Haunting At Lopham House. Radio drama, horror B-movies, and du Maurier's literary ilk seem to lay the foundation for this occasionally manic flurry of meticulously constructed zingers. Neenan (formerly one half of comedy duo the Gentlemen of Leisure along with Nish Kumar) knows his stuff, so to speak, and that mastery of the Edwardian ghost story form has allowed him to positively cram his hour full of wit. And let us italicise cram.

A funny thing happens to audiences when confronted with such a volume of jokes: we're forced to quantify them, to weigh up hits and misses in a way that a more subtle hand may have exempted us from. Fortunately, Neenan's hits outweigh his misses tenfold, as evidenced by the lengthy pauses he must allow for his intimate Pleasance audience to collect themselves. There is no doubt that Gentlemen of Leisure, whose mission statement was to provide the masses with a "unique comedic cornucopia of culture", primed Neenan for this balance between purity of narrative form and the absurd. We'd love to see him tackle Cthulu.

Neenan has managed to sprinkle wry, dry, occasionally punny humour on to antiquarian tropes with near flawless success. And that unyielding energy—as well as the inclusion of a character we'll simply call "LBC"—make Neenan positively shine as a new solo artist.