If you like your stand-up comedy delivered on steroids then Josh Elton is the man for you.
“Hello, Wembley! Have we got a lot of energy. Is this wicked! We are in for a helluva show,” he said, bounding on stage after corralling the early-afternoon crowd to give him a raucous welcome.
I’d made the elementary error of turning up without any paper, so was making notes on a brown paper bag. Which, in retrospect, was probably not the best move for an in-your-face show presented by a self-confessed narcissist who took no hostages. His warm-up had the air of an inquisition, albeit a comedy one which got the up-for-it audience going. If there was collateral damage, with Elton assuring them the guy scribbling away couldn’t possibly be doing a review, so be it.
A big-bearded, bald-headed, right-on comedian originally from Swansea in south Wales – or “heroin-on-sea” as he said it was nicknamed – Elton, 33, was very much at home behind the microphone, poking fun at a world obsessed with labels about identity.
He has two himself, ADHD and dyspraxia, and was happy to make fun at his own expense, joking that he’d high-fived a woman in the breast and she’d high-fived him back in the face.
Now based in Cardiff, Elton, who did a double degree in counselling and psychology, ridiculed neo-Nazis for their stupidity, Kanye West for his stupidity and his own people – the narcissists. Plus the audience. “I can speak for an hour and if any of you speak you are dickheads and at the end I am going to ask you for money,” he joshed.
There were some well-conceived lines, but his cruder material fell a bit flat in the post-lunch hour and his satirical impressions were probably more for his pleasure than ours. But for someone with such drive and adrenaline – not to mention his family’s links to David Baddiel, which featured in a running gag parodying the idea that Jews control the media – the world could be his oyster. Or perhaps not, given his Jewish background, though as his Jewish half is descended from his father’s side it shouldn’t really matter.
Elton, who jested to this reviewer that he goes by the stage name Kevin Bridges, was supported by Steffan Alun, 28, from Swansea, who gave an engagingly wry insight into being bisexual.
Josh Elton: Mountain Jew (plus support)
PBH’s Free Fringe @ Brewdog Doghouse (Upstairs Bar), until Aug 27 (not 16th or 23rd)
