Hal Cruttenden, Udderbelly, Southbank Centre - comedy review

Hal Cruttenden calls his show Tough Luvvie because that is how he sees himself. He trained as a classical actor, ended up auditioning for bit parts in EastEnders and when not doing stand-up claims that he can get considerably more irate than his mild-mannered stage persona suggests.

It might feel like a caricature but it makes for crowdpleasing comedy. Cruttenden, more Michael McIntyre than Micky Flanagan, is particularly good on the middle-class front. He is so camp even his 12-year-old daughter has asked him if he is gay. His wife has one of those terse Northern Irish accents that sounds menacing even when she is being romantic.

Masculinity is an obsession. He has great fun demonstrating how football chants are merely male bonding to mask male anxiety and reveals how when dealing with unreliable builders he whines like a son hoping to see his divorced dad: “You said you’d come on Saturday … can we go to the park?”

These energetically acted out mini-dramas suggest there is a sitcom-in-waiting here.

Occasionally the material appears shoehorned in but there is no shortage of laughs, whether discussing the north/south divide, infuriatingly inane Facebook updates or his food fixation. The slightly cuddly comic says he would be no good on MasterChef. By the time the judges arrive he’d have scoffed the entire menu.

The result is a winning set that builds to a road rage anecdote which demonstrates how tough this luvvie can be. There is also a hilarious deconstruction of Rudyard Kipling’s poetry. Though I suspect Cruttenden would probably rather be devouring Mr Kipling’s cakes.

Also Nov 16, Leicester Square Theatre, WC2 (0844 8733 433, leicestersquaretheatre.com

Read Bruce Dessau's comedy blog at www.beyondthejoke.co.uk