David Baddiel: My Family: Not The Sitcom
I took the relatively short trip to Charing Cross and the pleasant environs of the Playhouse Theatre on Saturday for a matinee of David Baddiel's latest one man show. It starts with some generally light material about the nature of Twitter, making jokes on Twitter and the nature of offence that reminded me somewhat of Mike Birbiglia's recent Netflix special "Thank God For Jokes" which I keep meaning to get around to reviewing.
We quickly get into the central thrust of the show which concerns Baddiel's mother Sarah, who passed away a couple of years ago. We discover several of her eccentricities, starting with her lack of awareness that lighting forty candles on a birthday cake is a potential fire hazard. There's also some delightful footage of her hijacking an episode of "Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned" as she successfully matches wits with the double act and utterly embarrasses her son.
But the real story here is Sarah's 25 year affair with a family friend that she seldom attempted to conceal, her libido remaining unaffected even after Parkinsons and Crohns diagnoses. Assuming that I take Baddiel at his word that all of these stories are true, he's sitting on a goldmine of dysfunction. But there remains a strong sense of craft in how he extracts the laughs. Baddiel's dryness and general sense of bemusement yields a lot of returns, but the show is excellently written and cleverly structured to return to previous narrative strands.
The second half mostly concerns his father's diagnosis with Pick's Disease, as Baddiel suggests that the affliction has merely served to amplify his belligerent father's characteristics ("He's become a Spitting Image puppet of himself"). This has manifested itself in a number of different ways including an outrageous utterance at the family's shiva following Sarah's funeral. There's a moment that feels especially poignant, when we see footage of Baddiel's father congratulating him on the night of Baddiel and Newman's show at Wembley Arena. Understandably, he can't help but reflect on a time when his father showed genuine kindness and tenderness towards him.
One might question whether it's right for Baddiel to tell these stories in this manner, night after night in the West End but from what we know about Sarah in particular, it's difficult to argue with his assertion that she would have loved to be the centre of attention. Richard Pryor once suggested that the secret to comedy was "Always be truthful and funny will follow". Baddiel's loving, genuine, warts and all tribute to his parents is precisely that.
We quickly get into the central thrust of the show which concerns Baddiel's mother Sarah, who passed away a couple of years ago. We discover several of her eccentricities, starting with her lack of awareness that lighting forty candles on a birthday cake is a potential fire hazard. There's also some delightful footage of her hijacking an episode of "Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned" as she successfully matches wits with the double act and utterly embarrasses her son.
But the real story here is Sarah's 25 year affair with a family friend that she seldom attempted to conceal, her libido remaining unaffected even after Parkinsons and Crohns diagnoses. Assuming that I take Baddiel at his word that all of these stories are true, he's sitting on a goldmine of dysfunction. But there remains a strong sense of craft in how he extracts the laughs. Baddiel's dryness and general sense of bemusement yields a lot of returns, but the show is excellently written and cleverly structured to return to previous narrative strands.
The second half mostly concerns his father's diagnosis with Pick's Disease, as Baddiel suggests that the affliction has merely served to amplify his belligerent father's characteristics ("He's become a Spitting Image puppet of himself"). This has manifested itself in a number of different ways including an outrageous utterance at the family's shiva following Sarah's funeral. There's a moment that feels especially poignant, when we see footage of Baddiel's father congratulating him on the night of Baddiel and Newman's show at Wembley Arena. Understandably, he can't help but reflect on a time when his father showed genuine kindness and tenderness towards him.
One might question whether it's right for Baddiel to tell these stories in this manner, night after night in the West End but from what we know about Sarah in particular, it's difficult to argue with his assertion that she would have loved to be the centre of attention. Richard Pryor once suggested that the secret to comedy was "Always be truthful and funny will follow". Baddiel's loving, genuine, warts and all tribute to his parents is precisely that.
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