How hard should a comedian try when they’re already a household name? Some still go the extra yard: Peter Kay on his last tour, for example. Some – such as Romesh Ranganathan – turn on cruise control, but are at least cruising at high altitude. And for some, there is a drop-off. John Bishop promises a show proper after the interval of Back at It, whose first half is “the mess-about bit”. But there’s not much structure or significance in Act Two either, nor are the jokes good enough to compensate.
That’s not to say audiences won’t enjoy the scouser’s shtick: it’s personable enough, and tickles in places that many like to be tickled. There are jokes about how henpecked Bishop is in his marriage, some of which feel, as he rages on about “fucking compromises”, uncomfortably emphatic. There’s material about his midlife crisis and his wife’s menopause. (Sample gag: “that woman you thought had a hot body really has a hot body.”) There are jokes about a woman being called Fanny and about how ill-at-ease Bishop was about snogging Ian McKellen in a panto.
Unreconstructed, you might call it, or just unimaginative. Too many times, he’s making route-one comic choices – such as the gag about pranking his BSL interpreter by having them translate a line about wanking. Ho hum. It might be easier to swallow were it all a means to an end. But the loose-fitting material is never stitched together into an elegant whole. There are anecdotes about Bishop’s dad going on a cruise, or making a trip to his beloved Anfield, which patch in autobiographical colour but have nothing to offer comedically. There’s lots about Bishop’s “plastic Paddy” identity cribbed from his recent Who Do You Think You Are?-style TV endeavours.
A comic once proud of wearing his heart on his sleeve tacks on an emotional conclusion here, about a schoolfriend he doesn’t recognise and about the recent loss of his mum. That’s what the show’s “about”, he says. But really, Back at It – too often weak of punchline, and carelessly assembled – is too undercooked to be about anything.
