A Jerry Seinfeld appearance in the UK is an event. For one thing it's rare (he was last here in 2011) and for another he's a comic hero to many for his eponymous sitcom, which he co-created with Larry David.
Seinfeld's opening set piece is about wasting time. No bragging, but he has a lot of time to waste these days, and we might as well waste our time spending an evening with him, wasting time together. It's typical Seinfeld – lengthy, seemingly freewheeling storytelling but which is precision-honed as goes down various highways and byways to get back to his original point.
His shtick is telling unconnected stories that he seamlessly binds together, delivered in his trademark nasal Brooklyn twang that always has a touch of “Is it just me?”, or rather “What's the deal with that?”
He doesn't do jokes as such, but delivers smart confections, not always as punchlines but sprinkled among the anecdotes: in a section about the foods from his childhood, he mentions Shredded Wheat – “It was like wrapping your lips around a wood chipper.”
Seinfeld's observational comedy, sometimes taken to surreal lengths, covers a lot of territory – life after the invention of smartphones, the perils of using Portaloos, the quirks of language and the manners of texting among them.
There's a lot that annoys him and he gives full tilt to his minor miseries – the delightful Yiddish word for it is kvetching – from over-fancy food (“I can't take the drizzling any more”) and how any phrase that doubles up a word is meaningless – “It is what it is”, What's done is done”, etc. Strangely enough, having had an invitation-only secret gig for British comics before these appearances to help give his material a UK bent, he misses the open goal of “Brexit means Brexit”.
About 45 minutes into this 70-minute show, just as things are starting to sound a little samey and with no interaction with the audience (not even when a couple of people shout friendly heckles), Seinfeld says he's shifting gear into more personal stuff, and the energy in the room instantly lifts.
The comic tells us he's 65, and the father of three children, but he spoils the moment by delivering 15 minutes of comedy that is remarkably dated – and not just from when he performed it here in 2011. Women say this, men do that, marriage is a chore and a constant battle. Surely this comic master can find something original to say about how the sexes co-exist? Either things haven't progressed in the Seinfeld household, or he hasn't noticed that society – and comedy – has.
Seinfeld does a couple of callbacks, and then says goodnight. It's a super-slick masterclass of comic performance, but curiously soulless. And had I paid £100-plus for a ticket, I might have felt short-changed.
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