Reginald D Hunter came to the Royal Theatre Nottingham fresh from his recent PFA awards controversy to play the third night of his new tour ‘In the Midst of Crackers’.
The first thing which was apparent about the American comic is that he has set out to display a greater emotional depth than his TV persona would suggest. When appearing on various panel shows across the BBC he comes across as an affable but almost dopey character, yet it seemed clear from the start that he wanted to distance himself from this image.
To some extent this was where the problem lied; I think that Reginald D Hunter is an intelligent man but he is not an intellectual; which makes analysis of heavyweight issues such as feminism, sex and psychotherapy almost redundant; especially when this material is not backed up with strong enough jokes.
If we take the topic of psychotherapy for example; this is an area which a comic such as Woody Allen is able to draw hilarious and insightful conclusions from. Yet Reginald D Hunter on the same topic can only manage to draw conclusions which are quite funny and partially insightful. This shows where a stand-off lies for the comic; do they want to be as funny as they can be or do they want to provide an insight. Very few can provide both and my opinion is that Reginald D Hunter would benefit if he focused more on the jokes.
Despite the themes not always being well suited to the comedian there were still some very funny moments and one moment in particular where I found myself laughing uncontrollably! It’s also worth meriting the comic for not relying too heavily on race and cultural jokes; I feel it would have easy for him to do this yet he seemed to make a conscious effort to avoid these ‘easy laughs’.
At the end of the night the audience showed their appreciation for Reginald D Hunter with a warm applause.; and that was all it was a warm applause, no standing ovation or encore and I think this sums up the night in the best way; a good solid performance but nothing much there to set the pulses racing.
By James Kellett
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