one4review | On 23, Aug 2019

Ben Pope seems like a lovely, warm fellow, without a cynical thought in his head or malice for anyone. He didn’t even have anything particularly negative to say about the sassy, nonchalant ghost, just accepted it, decided to find it funny, and ran with it.

This show is really tightly written, but with enough gaps for both audience interaction and use of their responses that it remains feeling fresh. The links and segues between topics are strong and logical, and so the narrative flow of the show is extremely coherent and not undermined by tenuous links. Mr Pope himself, we discover during the show, is a middle-class, privately-educated white male, but he’s also acutely aware of his privilege, using it to laugh at himself and question the system rather than exploiting it for his own advantage.

The content of the show itself it a well-delivered balance of humour and point-making; anecdotes, stories and demonstrations from his employment history, and reflections on the way the world works extrapolated from his experiences. This is a lovely, rounded show of entertaining stand-up.

Reviewed by Laura

Pleasance Courtyard
20:00 (until 25th)