During his stand-up career to date Gareth Waugh has discovered he is socially awkward, short and shouldn’t take drugs; now he is attempting to learn how to go from support act to comedy superstar in his own right.
He himself says during the show that he shouldn’t be on at 1:30pm, not least because of some of his more risqué jokes, but more because he is better than a turret venue with a lunchtime slot. He has a point having supported some of the biggest names in comedy at the moment: Iain Stirling, Tom Stade and Mark Nelson to name but a few, but the Gilded Balloon’s turret is packed out and so perhaps the accommodators got it right after all.
Waugh’s aforementioned social awkwardness may at times interfere with his humour but it is essential to his act and is endearing in its uncomfortableness. The crowd are willing him to do well and he gets plenty of laughs from his stories, which may or may not be honest.
The premise of his show is that there are two mics: one through which Waugh will tell only the truth and another through which he will only tell lies. It is a nice touch to separate himself from the many other comedians trying to make their way in this business we call show; but despite promising an end of performance reveal, the crowd leaves unsure which mic truly revealed the real Waugh.
This is of course a deliberate tactic, using the inconvenience for the audience to plug his social media presence and encourage those keen to find out which mic was truthful to ask via one of these channels, or indeed find him at the venue bar after the show.
Waugh has the potential to go from strength to strength with his unique ideas and humble personality, as long as he doesn’t let the latter stand in the way of his success.