Comedy shows usually end at around 10.30pm but Simon Amstell concluded 30 minutes earlier.
I wondered if this was so that he could watch his 10pm sitcom Grandma’s House. If there is a more intensely self-obsessed stand-up than Amstell I’ve yet to encounter them. He is so angsty that he makes Woody Allen seem like Will.i.am.
Numb continues the theme of the skinny star’s last autobiographical set, Do Nothing, exploring why he feels so lonely and disconnected. The tightly written hour is filled with frank, pithy anecdotes about wince-makingly awkward encounters. A spa hotel break, a visit to a shaman in Peru and unapologetically trendy Shoreditch parties all dish up delicious comic surprises.
We also get some insight into what inflated Amstell’s ego. He says that his father was distant and angry and his stepfather reminded him of Billy Zane’s character in Titanic —“I found a good lawyer so it all worked out in the end.”
Life is meaningless, we all die, he muses. Perhaps, but fans of hip, intelligent humour-as-therapy can cheer themselves up while hurtling towards oblivion by seeing this show.
Simon Amstell plays Shepherds Bush Empire, W12, June 7-9 (0844 844 0444, ticketmaster.co.uk).
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