JUST RELAX, MAN |
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) Nik Coppin in Spiders, Man (UK) at The Transmission Room, Auckland From 1 May 2008 to 3 May 2008 Reviewed by Nik Smythe, 2 May 2008 |
Regular mid thirties London geezer Nik Coppin has stopped off in Kiwiland on his international comedy circuit travels to tell us a bit about stuff like what he thinks about, and to try and pick up our accent. Starting off with a seemingly safe 'who's here from Auckland?', apparently no-one wanted to admit it at first, especially not me.
Some frenetic banter with the audience establishes that we have a cosmopolitan crowd here tonight, representing Argentina, Manchester, Texas and New York. Normally this repartee stuff is just comedy detail, not really much to review, but this Thursday night the twenty odd audience members play more than minor roles in the proceedings.
There was all-knowing Alan (from Auckland) in the front, the most classic Kiwi caricature Coppin could have hoped for. 'Monteiths lady', a drunkish lass 'from accounts' was there with her boss (cue a recurring theme of increasingly lurid assumptions from the guy with the mic), originally made herself known when she drunkenly abused Coppin's dress sense vis a vis his red crocs (which admittedly did clash with the slightly different red of his Spider-top which, although nifty in it's gimmickry really is indeed quite annoying to look at). Near the back there's 'Wolverine Lady' who vitriolically disputes Coppin's assertion that Spiderman would beat Wolverine in a fight.
Coppin himself can't quite seem to ever just relax, which in turn makes it hard for us to properly relax and keeps his whole hour all at pretty much the same level. He mostly just talks about pretty normal kinds of things that interest him, and now and then he might even make a joke but he never gives any of it breathing space. Every time he attempts a Kiwi accent he then has to quickly point out that he's getting there.
He's not above being below the belt, as it were, by any stretch. But he has a need to cover it with the 'just joking!' line. And when you think about it, it's more insulting than any personal remark he might make against anyone, to feel the need to patronisingly remind us he's joking in a comedy show at a comedy festival.
The show ran way over time and he still said there was heaps more he wanted to talk about, when what I felt was he needed to talk less and let some of his gags and concepts breathe.
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