Do we need yet another show about a comic’s pandemic travails? Well, maybe just one more. Ivo Graham’s My Future My Clutter is his winning overview of a busy few years that includes a bout of belated Covid, fatherhood and not one, but two visits to Peppa Pig World.
The global virus plays second fiddle to more personal events in the posh, self-deprecating stand-up’s recent life. Various significant things have happened to him, such as the break-up of his marriage and the subsequent shared parenting, lending this monologue an intimate edge absent from previous outings.
Which is not to say that Graham is not averse to shamelessly silly pay-offs. Early on he confesses to being the kind of geek who plays online puzzles when out clubbing. “It was Wordle on the dancefloor.” You can almost hear Sophie Ellis-Bextor wincing.
Many of the anecdotes in this immensely engaging set take place as lockdown was easing. Graham is at that Richard Curtis/Four Weddings thirtysomething age, when many of his friends are marrying. Graham’s role is less sexy Hugh Grant, more geeky stag do administrator.
On one occasion, he recounts how he arranged a canal trip for a 13-strong party. When it turns out the boat only has a capacity for a dozen, guess who is left cheering on his friends from dry land? Graham is a gracious fall guy, elsewhere telling the tale of a bleak Fresher’s Week Zoom gig where an audience member expressed his disinterest by cooking a risotto.
Graham is very good at both acknowledging his Old Etonian privilege and sending up his status. He recalls his classmates’ Whatsapp group burning red hot as fellow former pupil Boris Johnson was about to resign. Justice, he thought, not just because of the PM’s politics but because he had referenced Peppa Pig in a speech and spoilt Graham’s own embryonic porcine riff.
Privilege does have its perks though, he admits. With his parents stranded in the Far East in 2020 he was able to move back into their substantial yet empty Wiltshire home: “All of the Aga, none of the aggro.”
The self-mocking tone keeps the laughs flowing, whether it is about being all grown up and meeting his ex’s new boyfriend – “We’re not at V festival any more” – or needing to find somewhere else to stay quickly and moving in with a friend called Julian. Most Old Etonians, he suggests, have an “emergency Julian”.
Readings from his old boarding school exercise books punctuate the routines and reveal Graham to have been a lonely, homesick football fan. These soppy-sad snippets add emotional weight to a set that is confident, exquisitely crafted and, most importantly, satisfyingly funny.
Soho Theatre, to Saturday; sohotheatre.com
