To most people, neuroses are a nuisance. To comedians, neuroses are a nuisance that put food on the table.
Troubled Enough is a cheerier follow-up to the show that nabbed Natalie Haynes a Perrier Best Newcomer nomination last year.
Daily doses of Dick van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder have enhanced Haynes's mood. But still she skewers herself and others with pace and poise.
That said, her misanthropy is less appealing than her self-laceration. Haynes doesn't have the heightened persona needed to make her attacks on whingeing farmers and fishermen charming rather than iffy. But the stories she recounts about herself are told with aplomb. This Birmingham-bred ball of bourgeois confusion fires out as many words-per-minute as anyone on the circuit. But she doesn't waste them. And she doesn't falsify.
Highlights include the story of how she got herself banned for life - from Keele University. And how she collided once more with the sixth-former she slept with while teaching at a public school (a liaison that got her sacked).
There are funnier comics with greater range than Haynes, but there are few on the circuit who are more compelling.
Natalie Haynes
