Harry Hill & Nish Kumar @ The Half Moon

It’s always a delight when top-tier comics come to Putney, often to test out new material before much bigger stages and sometimes TV specials. And there’s something special about The Half Moon backroom.

Putney is unfailingly honest in its response to gags but polite at the same time (there is a no heckling rule but not one really needs to be reminded of it). It’s a safe space for comics and that’s why we get the likes of Harry Hill and Nish Kumar paying a visit.

It’s easy to forget the sheer energy and inventiveness of “TV funnyman” Harry Hill. On a show, he has to keep it tight; on stage, he lets rip. He’s such a natural, veteran performer that it’s hard to know when he’s going through prepared material or spontaneously going off on increasingly bizarre tangents just to see where he might end up.

After one extended bit when he maniacally sings the whole of Nina Simone’s Ain’t Got No, I Got Life (“I got my arms, got my hands, Got my fingers, got my legs, Got my feet, got my toes, Got my liver, got my blood”) just for the payoff: “But enough about me…”, he tells the audience. “Yeah, came up with that this morning.” Harry was clearly enjoying himself and we shared the feeling.

It’s borderline impossible to review the performance by pointing to a comedic thread or particular joke; the freewheeling nature of it is what makes him so much fun. But if we had to pick one thing that stood out, it was the tour de force that was Mr Hill’s rundown of his skincare routine, in which he threw out a blizzard of terms, phrases, ingredients, marketing bumpf and medical lingo for so long and with such fierce accuracy that it was hard not to marvel at the high-collared comic’s masterful mind.

Nish Kumar on the other hand was in a very different mood. A dark mood. And he let us know it. Nish is sick to death of where the country is, particularly our politics, and particularly the Conservative Party. Having launched into an early, hilarious tirade, he barely paused before launching into another one – the sheer frustration flying out of him.

Then he paused. “By the way,” he told the audience. “This is it tonight. A middle aged Asian man angrily ranting.”

He wasn’t wrong. But Nish Kumar’s dexterity with words, his ability to evoke mad imagery and his fearlessness in living in the moment; bending to whatever amusing thought pops into his head makes it a fun ride. At times, he was toying with the audience, pushing buttons to see what would make them flinch and cringe and then taking great pride in pushing it a little further.

Eventually even Nish wore himself out. And, relieved at having emptied his blue bag of bile, fell back on practised material that was sharp and funny but after the hurricane of what had gone before seemed almost too reasonable. And for Putney, that’s quite something.