Five minutes before this gig was due to start I spotted compere-beyond-compare Arthur Smith strolling nonchalantly past Hackney Town Hall. Yet sure enough, five minutes later the crumpled comedy legend was onstage, effortlessly bringing smiles to the crowd with something old, something newish, something borrowed, but nothing blue.
The ageing slacker's current residency cherry-picks endless up-and-coming performers, adding bigger, punter-pulling players.
Stalwart satirist Andy Parsons was on fine hectoring form but most impressive was Joe Wilkinson, a relative novice and an absolute natural, marrying Stewart Lee-style joke deconstruction to scathing one-liners worthy of Jack Dee.
This was really Smith's night though. Sporting khaki shorts and a Sid James smirk, he tossed in an old statistic: "One out of three Americans weighs as much as the other two."
He had a new political edge, too, adding that "God invented war to teach Americans geography".
On the subject of borrowing, he claimed that he was now too grumpy to appear on Grumpy Old Men and asked the audience to give him stories in the interval about what made them grumpy, which he cheekily purloined for the second half. What makes me grumpy? Too many acts, not enough Arthur.
Also 4 and 11 May. Information: 020 8985 2424.
Arthur Smith's Cut Price Comedy Club
Hackney Empire
Mare Street, E8 1EJ
