A brilliantly inventive hour of well-observed stand-up, delivered with engaging energy and great comic timing. Rating
Excellent!
Titles in comedy can often bear little relation to the show they represent, but Ian Smith takes this to glorious extremes. The Foot Spa Is Half Empty contains no mention of foot spas at all (unless I missed something, which I very much doubt!), but is instead an hour-long slice of solid anecdote-led stand-up based loosely around Smith’s need to take a sperm count test.
Smith is a seasoned performer with several successful Edinburgh Fringe shows under his belt and a growing career in TV – and it shows. He oozes relaxed northern charm from the off. His stage presence is lively and physical, his storytelling is meticulously constructed, and he is an expert at circling back to small details introduced earlier in the hour. A “fast forward” device he introduces at the start reappears somewhat earlier than he led us to believe, catching the audience delightfully unawares and adding to its impact.
Although Smith’s central narrative revolves around the deeply awkward task of completing a sperm test, he uses this as a simple narrative springboard. The show is peppered with brilliantly odd tangents that take on a local newspaper story about a girl getting stuck in a basketball hoop, which was a brilliant way to start his show and had the audience roaring with laughter from the get-go. Likewise, his storytelling about his skiing adventures demonstrates his flair for elevating trivialities into hilarious details. It is a skill that feels instinctive and marks him out as a comic who sees the world at a slightly different angle from the rest of us.
There were a few moments of unsolicited audience interaction. Smith handled them well, but his natural instinct is clearly towards tightly crafted, written comedy rather than crowd work. When he briefly strayed into off-the-cuff exchanges, you could sense the slightest flicker of unease, yet to his credit, he always regained control. Should he ever lean further into audience interaction, he would undoubtedly adapt, but it is not the heart of this particular hour.
An amusing thread running through the evening is his anxiety about the following night’s audience, which, he claimed, includes a group of thirty Danish teenagers. Whether entirely true or partly theatrical embellishment, it added a layer of playful tension. His humour is very British and very northern, and it is hard to imagine how such a specific style might be received and understood by them. Anyone attending later in the run may wish to report back on how the Danes responded, as I’m sure he’ll reference it.
The only wobble came near the end when Smith appeared momentarily unsure how to bring the show to a close. A brief coda brings the show back on track, but that apparently small lapse in confidence was the one moment when the audience’s trust wavered.
Nevertheless, The Foot Spa Is Half Empty is an extremely funny and cleverly constructed hour of stand-up from a performer who might find his material in unusual places but who knows how to see the funny side in almost anything. Tonight, he won himself a new fan for sure.
Written & Performed by Ian Smith
The Foot Spa Is Half Empty plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday 29 November.
