Review: Milton Jones @ SDH
Milton Jones: On The Road
St. David's Hall
Wednesday 27th March 2013
Known for his quick wacky wit, bright wacky shirts and mad wacky hair, stand up giant Milton Jones is pretty wacky. According to whoever updated his Wikipedia entry, Jones’ "...style of humour is based on one-liners involving puns delivered in a deadpan and slightly neurotic style." And good gracious does it work a treat.
Clad in dressing gown, pyjamas and a flat cap, for his first onstage appearance as one of his support acts, Milton entered on a scooter, of the push-a-long kids’ variety, as his own grandfather. Bumbly, grumbly and, for a short-sighted second, unrecognisable as surely the best MJ alive, the OAP set up a few audience responses for us to employ in his grandson’s later set whilst delivering line after line of gold. The half-hour of war jokes, mildly racist slurs and an IRA-related heckle rebuff helped create a memorable character who tickled us red, white and blue.
Also supporting Milton and his elderly alter-ego was Chris Martin, not father of Apple and singer of Clocks but a self-proclaimed "...less good looking Jenson Button" with a pile of anecdotal gags worth a few guffaws. His comedy, in comparison to the brilliance of our one-line hero to follow, seemed a little clunky in its storytelling and despite some witty observational shizzle, didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
Telling five times as many jokes as your average stand-up at an almost breathtaking pace, the main attraction returned in his usual attire to bombard the St David’s crowd with super clever, irreverent one-liners, first-class delivery, wide-eyed cheekiness and an overhead projector. Cross examining latecomers and using his own sound effect to embellish certain jokes; this was comedy at its most intelligently bizarre. And bizarrely intelligent.
"If a Welshman says. ‘that’s my fantasy’... then he could just be referring to his fizzy drink." As he tackled everything from Neanderthal P.E. teachers to grilling tomatoes ("Who are you? Where d’you come from?") nothing escaped Milton’s pun-loving grip on the room. "I like my women like I like my tea," he announced, "hot, black and... with a penguin." The room erupted for the umpteenth time.
His truly incomparable performance style, constant look of bafflement, non-stop punchlines and brilliant off-the-cuff confidence made for the most original and memorable night of comedy I am yet to experience. A true one-off worth seeing twice.
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Related Article: Review: Micky Flanagan @ St. David’s Hall
IMAGE: Milton Jones
