Dom Joly’s career path could hardly be described as uninteresting, and his first live show, ‘Welcome To Wherever I Am’ spends much of its time looking at what Dominic John Romulus Joly got up to over some twenty years in television and other ‘meeja’. Joly is an undeniably engaging performer, and kept his Queen’s Hall audience comfortably in hand (and sometimes in check) for an easy-going two hours or so.
For those familiar with Joly’s back-catalogue the time, as well as the years, probably flashed by with pleasure. Joly first came to prominence in shows such as ‘Trigger Happy TV’ that relied on hidden camera work and the reactions of the unsuspecting for their humour. That the likes of ‘Trigger Happy’ and ‘Dom Joly’s Happy Hour’ emerged in turn-of-the-century Britain amid the hubristic hype of a ‘Cool Britannia’ that was ‘relaxed’ about the acquisitive creatures it spawned makes these productions appear more prescient than may have been intended.
Dom Joly also appeared in 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here', where preditably tensions appeared amongst those involved, and there’s also a little tension involved in watching these reminders of the way we were and may be about to be again. As someone very much identified with previous TV successes, Joly seems here to be rather a prisoner of his own past good fortune. Although he deprecates the creative work which clearly went into the development of the shows in which he’s been a major part, his intrinsic likeableness shines through his time on stage.
Which was really the problem for this reviewer; despite a cheery ‘Q and A’ session opening the second half of the show, even this failed to produce any sense of edginess (except perhaps from one over-enthusiastic audience member). Although obviously not ‘stand-up’ comedy the genuinely good-hearted and good-natured essence of Joly’s show ultimately failed to fully satisfy. Even the tale of being at school with the late Osama Bin Laden felt like an uncomfortable fact was being elided over rather than, as it might have been, exploited for its full nine yards of black humour.
Which is an unreasonable demand that Joly be something other than the wry cheerful soul he presents us with here? The structure of the end of the show meant Joly may have missed out on the applause he deserved and the audience certainly wished to give him, leaving this reviewer for one to ponder what the show, and more to the point Joly himself, was trying to avoid.
Show was 14 May 2011