‘Who’s here ’cos of Ted Lasso?” grins Nick Mohammed, double-Emmy-nominated star of the soccer sitcom, in his first UK tour as Mr Swallow. Then he sucks the air through his teeth: “Very different show, this.”
Even those unfamiliar with his chaotic stage appearances as the shouty, indignant, Orville-voiced magician will know the character from his 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown spots, where he has memorised decks of cards, added lyrics to the Jurassic Park theme and deprecated the mathematical melee of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Each of these routines, viewed millions of times online, is wheeled out in this live greatest-hits compilation, but none of it feels shop-worn.
Partly that’s down to an enduring mystery: who is Mr Swallow and what does he want? These questions have never been answered in the decade or so since Mohammed created this chippy-chirpy northern know-it-all. On a set that is bare tonight except for whiteboard, laptop, synthesiser and helium balloons, he conducts a PowerPoint presentation about memory. The evening isn’t tied to its tech in the same way as, say, Dave Gorman or Joseph Morpurgo; one of the pleasures of Mr Swallow is how easily he can be sidetracked. Examples include a long section recounting the plot of Les Mis, complete with a lovely Gumtree reference and some ill-tempered jibes at Fantine (“Wouldn’t want to be sat next to her at a wedding”).
Why he is on roller-skates is anyone’s guess, though his ungainly revolutions around the stage suggest a visual correlation for his runaway train of thought, as well as lowering expectations of competence so that the maths wizardry and memory tricks are even more impressive. Whereas usually he is skating on thin ice (Mohammed has described the often peevish, pedantic character as “an endurance test”), this solo show has less friction than past outings which have given Mr Swallow – as Houdini, Scrooge or Dracula – several sidekicks to thwart or be thwarted by. Perhaps the new tour is part of a longer game: use this softer iteration to lasso the Ted fans, then hit them with the real shrill deal next time round.
