With Orange Crush, Ivo Graham promises us either his best ever standup set, or a colour-coordinated breakdown. I’m not sure it’s either. Having been asked “What’s your favourite colour?” by his six-year-old kid, this show riffs on Graham’s fondness for orange – which doesn’t exactly scream standup with something essential to say. But he roams around the subject entertainingly enough, in an hour addressing Wotsits and Irn-Bru, his mother’s MS and his role in the campaign to save Swindon Town football club.
Alongside that material, Graham is bracingly outspoken on Palestine, to which cause he also lends his support. All of which, with his newfound suavity and recent rebranding (tongue in cheek or otherwise) as simply “Ivo”, made me wonder: whither the shy and self-abasing Graham of yesteryear? It mightn’t have been much fun to live, but it was a compelling comic persona – whereas Ivo 2.0, 34 years old and with a bit of swagger, is harder to grasp.
