Review

If there’s an element of preaching to the converted about political comedy, Michael Moore’s show at the Roundhouse is more akin to an evangelical revival. Be warned: if you think George Bush is a shade dumber than the average root vegetable, if you think the war on Iraq is Bush’s ’weapon of mass distraction’, or if you pine for the days when ’Old Labour’ was just Labour, you’ll enjoy this show. All others need not apply.

If you are one of the converted, however, you’re in for a treat. The 2-hour show is smart, challenging and often very funny. Moore is an engaging speaker who has obviously spent as much time thinking through the issues as thinking up the jokes, and he ranges effortlessly from personal reflection to political satire. The material is mostly American, but it has been adapted for this audience and it works partly because he obviously has a fondness for the English (’you even get an adjective in your name - Great Britain. Most countries don’t get that.’). He also gets a lot of easy laughs sending up Americans.

There were a few clunky moments that would have been better handled by a more polished entertainer, particularly some of the audience participation set-pieces. His attempt to prove that the smartest American in the audience is dumber than the dumbest Brit fails when he flukes an American volunteer who can actually answer his questions (What is the capital of Burkina Faso? Which three countries abut Afghanistan?) but that’s one of the joys of improv, and Moore handles it with shambolic charm.

He is at his best when he’s more personal and less polemical. The story of how the first printing of his new book ’Stupid White Men’ would have been pulped post-9/11 by his Murdoch-owned publishers, Harper Collins, if not for the intervention of militant librarians is brilliant: a well-told, feel-good story with a happy ending. His monologue on 9/11 might make you squirm, but then good satire shouldn’t be comfortable. He finished off the evening with a lively Q&A session and he seemed to enjoy batting away audience criticism about some of the sharper points he’d made in the show.

If you like a bit of ’ire’ in your satire, make your way to the Roundhouse before 8 December.

Keir Paterson