It would be hard to find a starker contrast between two nights at the Apollo as Saturday night with Dara O'Brian and Sunday night with Paul Chowdhry. I had seen short sets by Paul before but never a full show. And it is worth seeing a full show to see what a comic has really got. And Paul Chowdhry had a very short show, stretched out enormously - well past breaking point.
This didn't seem to matter to most of the audience which was overwhelmingly Asian. They seemed to love him, but mostly because he was one of their own. They were perfectly happy with him taking the piss out of Bengalis, or Punjabis or whatever, and they would whoop happily whenever he just mentioned their names. Jokes were unnecessary. And were not forthcoming. At one point in the first act I thought that he was going to ask every single member of the audience what their name was, and mispronounce it back in a funny accent. He didn't, but covered the first couple of rows pretty thoroughly.
And whereas Dara O'Briain engaged with audience members and asked further questions about job or where they were from and developed things, Paul was happy to mimic them in a silly voice and question their sexuality. It was pretty basic, puerile stuff.
He did ask for questions as the encore. One guy asked if he would tell a joke. Jimmy Carr would deal with that by a withering witty put down. Paul settled on calling him a f***ing idiot. Not sure if that will make the DVD, but if it doesn't there wasn't much else to put in it.
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