Hal Cruttenden is heard at his best

Posted on 12th February 2023

Over the years, the Corn Hall has played host to many fine comedians, but Hal Cruttenden’s sold out show must surely rank as one of the best for a very long time. Deep down, we know that a comic’s routine is broadly scripted, but Cruttenden has a knack of making every thought seem spontaneously imagined, with a lightness of touch, as the humour trips off his tongue with seemingly effortless creativity and wit.

Knowingly describing himself as a  ‘pound shop Michael McIntyre’ he did his best to insist his comedy had an edge, but try as he might to be cutting, he was more teasing than vicious, rationing his political material while calling for tolerance of difference. No matter how many times he insisted he was surprisingly unpleasant, what emerged was a considered, charming man wrestling with the separation from his wife, seemingly without rancour or bitterness. Cruttenden’s consistently cheery demeanour allowed him to bounce off the audience, mocking their largely imagined marital issues, so that all concerned happily played along. Along the way, there were digressions aplenty. Death, parenting, dating, covid and dog walking were all examined in forensic detail. What chimed most, however, with his similarly aged audience, was the stigma that surrounds the image of the divorced, single, middle-aged man.

Feeling more like a conversation than an act, it’s perhaps understandable that certain audience members felt the evening was the former. Interjections happened so frequently that they threatened so jeopardise the ebb and flow of his cleverly crafted act. It’s a measure of the man that, rather than take exception to his punch lines being torpedoed, he instead embraced the madness, chuckling along with the audience at a gig he promised it would be hard for him to forget.