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Rhod Gilbert review – volcanic, crusading odd-couple comedy

G-Live, Guildford
Assisted by his life-saving chauffeur, Gilbert propels his high-octane humour with the pain of trauma

When you make your name getting overheated at trivial things, what’s left when life issues deadly serious challenges? Rhod Gilbert was six years away from standup before his current show – six gruelling years, by the sounds of things, during which his mum died, he had a stroke, and struggled with infertility. He looks those experiences straight in the eye in The Book of John, but finds a way to make them uproariously funny by bouncing them all off the apparently gormless chauffeur who ferries him between these adventures in humiliation and personal disaster.

Gilbert jotted down his every conversation with this occasionally savant aide, who drives him up the wall – but saves him, too. No trauma is so great that John can’t defuse it with some blockhead theory about frozen prawns or leftfield inquiry into sperm donation. With minimal means, Gilbert brings the character to idiosyncratic life; John has a way of misunderstanding that is entirely his own. With it, he keeps our beleaguered host sane and just-about-smiling as his life collapses around him.

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from Culture | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2vrTpVa
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