Miles Jupp wasn’t the first comedian I saw live, but certainly one of the earliest, back in 2011 for the Fibber In The Heat show - a show about how he blagged his way into a press pass for the Ashes. On I Bang is a very different proposition, instead a show about his diagnosis, surgery, and recovery from a brain tumour. Cheery stuff!
Luckily, Jupp is a very affable performer and treats the story - I mean, it’s his own, he can do what he likes with it - with an appropriate level of depth, gravitas, but also lightness. There’s other anecdotes dotted around, and he uses it as a springboard for a fair amount of otherwise relatable observational comedy, but the central topic is certainly well covered.
Jupp has a lovely way with words, and if this isn’t the most gag-heavy or high hit rate show, it’s still him playing to his strengths. Inevitably, there is a feeling like he is dragged along by the understood middle class nature of his audience (and, tonight, venue) and often there’s, if not a reluctance, a knowing feeling that this is not what he’d like to be doing, but if he doesn’t do the occasional Brexit or Boris Johnson joke, there’ll just be murmuring.
Still, there are some really nice lines in there, and many of those are the ones that pierce through the expected caricature of who Jupp is as a comedian - describing the interval from his experience as akin to Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac films is the kind of joke that I and I alone am cackling loudly at.
In the end, though, there is a surprisingly touching final line which sees me leaving the theatre still internalising it - the idea of coming out of all this with the stark reminder to make sure the ones you love know you do, and the hope that you know they do too, is perfect.