As part of Glasgow International Comedy Festival 2019
Jamie Dalgleish is unapologetically a working class guy from Glasgow’s East End and (as can be easily gleaned from the title of this show) much of his material concerns this fact. However, this ultimately results in a rather standard and fairly predictable routine which doesn’t really elicit many big laughs or seem to say anything particularly clever or new.
Perhaps it was the strangely flat crowd in attendance tonight, with Dalgleish’s icebreaker of asking people where they are from not really hooking the audience. This set the pattern for the proceedings, with various questions being asked and the audience not really engaging. To his credit, Dalgleish gamely continues on, proving himself to be very shrewd at adjusting and realising what is or isn’t landing. His continuous, gentle ribbing of a man who was a late developer when it came to drinking is a real highlight and generates a nice, genuine rapport.
Overall though, there is something shambolic about Dalgleish’s style in a way which feels slightly rambling and uncontrolled. From the off he mentions that he uses notes to try and ensure he doesn’t go off on a tangent but they don’t really help. There are a lack of callbacks helping to weave things together and the title of the show isn’t really expanded upon in his routine, or used to give a sense of structure. There is an attempt to address some of the points at the very end but it just ends up feeling tacked on and rushed. Dalgleish does joke about the fact he thought his set tonight was ninety minutes as opposed to sixty and begins to seemingly jettison sections when the clock is against him. It’s more irritating than endearing and feels like a compromise is being settled on which nobody really benefits from.