Nikki Britton: One Small Step

Effervescent Nikki Britton’s plan is to tell us the story of her holiday in Europe – with some diversions to another holiday, with her Mum, to Vanuatu.  Unfortunately, on the night I saw her show, she was interrupted by an audience member, Theresa (‘They call me “Mother”’) who, bobbing up and down, answered a standard question Nikki Britton had unwisely asked.  ‘How are we all tonight?’  Etc.  Theresa, who may or may not have ever been to a live show before, but seemed to think she was a hoot, explained that she was only there because at the last minute her son had got a ticket to Gary Ablett.  Theresa’s husband Walter weighed in too – and again later, in defence of the aesthetic of his penis. 

Nikki Britton is a clearly a good person because she wasn’t rude and she handled this impromptu intervention with great aplomb.  She swore that this pair were not a plant – and we believed her – and she did extract just about all the comedy there was to extract.  Nevertheless, it all went on a bit and Nikki was clearly anxious about the time left to get through her set. 

I could be quite wrong, but it seemed to me that after this – i.e., after she got Theresa to sit down and ‘shoosh’, as she put it – Nikki was thrown, she lost her rhythm and started to race.  Many of her best jokes are ‘asides’ – she makes a statement and then tags it with a qualification or a contradiction.  On this night, she certainly had the bubbling, manic energy that is such an attractive quality, but she was sometimes swallowing those asides and rushing on, gabbling - just going too fast.  Nikki Britton’s real schtick – and her best lines - is about being single, being maybe a touch overweight, horny, sex, bad sex, being graphic about the mechanics and aesthetics of bad sex, knowing what she wants and not getting it, getting angry about that, but somehow staying stubbornly romantic and living in hope. 

In this show, we get that, plus jokes about clueless men on dating sites, but her main (true) story is about how she went to Italy – alone, of course – and that is perhaps a not-so-great choice.  It strays into territory that makes us wince and feel genuinely sorry for her (there are projected photographs) - but it is territory that is not really the stuff of comedy.  Some things are just not funny.  When she diverts to Vanuatu and her Mum, it is a whole lot funnier because that really is icky, bizarre, awkward, and extremely embarrassing – the real stuff of comedy.   

I last reviewed Nikki Britton at the 2017 Comedy Festival, a show called Romanticide.  It was in a much smaller room and, coincidentally, she was interrupted then by two blokes who discovered they were in the wrong show – and she handled that with great aplomb too.  But in that show, as the title suggests, she bubbled, she stuck to her schtick, she took her time and while some of the laughs were rueful, they kept coming.  Maybe when this year’s show is minus Theresa, it will hit it its stride?  Despite Italy?  I hope so because Nikki Britton is a class act.

Michael Brindley