Culture Theatre

Julian Clary: Canned Clary at St James

Julian Clary: Canned Clary at St James | Comedy review

Once upon a time Julian Clary was the target of a campaign by The Daily Mail and The Sun to be banned from TV after making a joke about fisting Norman Lamont. Those outré heydays are over now, as Clary presents a more subdued mix of anecdote, song, audience participation and drag in St James Theatre. It is stuffed full of filthy innuendo, Clary retains his demure and unruffled style, but there is nothing particularly provocative in what he is doing anymore – not even in the childish insinuation about potential paedophiles.

Sarah Travis entertains the audience on the piano with some light jazz and boogie-woogie before Clary, accompanied by grinning sidekick Hugh Jelly, takes to the stage. Clary starts to interact with the audience: “What’s your name? Any idea?” he says to a man in the front row. Then a story about a woman whose embrace left the imprint of her genitals on his leg. Throughout his stories and innuendos (“The staff here have bent over backwards to help me – especially the security guard”) he never quite smiles, but hovers somewhere between a smirk and a grimace.

The bulk of the barely structured show consists of bringing four people on stage to compete for a prize. It is the most entertaining bit, purely because chance selected a bizarre quartet to take part. The first man is a traffic warden, number two is intensely uncomfortable at being on stage, the third man is a clown and the last of the four is a nutty woman who completely takes control of the conversation, rambling about her mallet finger. They participate in a variety of suggestive tasks – tasting flavoured condoms, squirting icing onto a cake. Then Clary interviews drag artist Titti La Camp about the history of drag, and La Camp does a segment of her own dressed as Susan Boyle and miming loosely to I Dreamed A Dream.

If you have heard of Clary then you probably know what to expect: campness, trite gay stereotypes and double entendres galore. The show’s rough around the edges feel is fine for a doting crowd, and many of the audience are clearly devoted fans, but the material is stale. It felt like Clary was upstaged by the audience members he brought onstage, who injected some energy and unpredictability into the show.

Timothy Bano

Canned Clary is at St James Theatre until 6th June 2014. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

More in Theatre

The Deep Blue Sea at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Ruweyda Sheik-Ali

The Comedy About Spies at Noël Coward Theatre

Thomas Messner

Cynthia Erivo to star in solo West End premiere of Dracula, playing all 23 roles

The editorial unit

Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe

Cristiana Ferrauti

The Mad Ones at the Other Palace

Nina Doroushi

Here We Are at the National Theatre

Constance Ayrton

An Oak Tree at the Young Vic

Thomas Messner

Krapp’s Last Tape at Barbican Theatre

Jonathan Marshall

Little Deaths at Theatre 503

Nina Doroushi