It’s been quite the year for Viggo Venn. Twelve months ago, he tells us, he was playing in a pub across the street to a crowd of 14 people. Tonight, he’s filled a West End theatre with fans who love him for Britain’s Got Talent, on which the Norwegian clown gambolled to victory in a fluorescent vest. If you liked his One More Time routine on telly, you’ll be in clover tonight: Venn flogs it for most of the first act (and plenty of the second). It starts to look as if our shock-haired host isn’t here with a comedy set, but for a laying on of hands, as he criss-crosses the auditorium ministering to his hi-vis devotees.
With technical crew forever scurrying across the stage and Venn among the crowd, it’s chaotic – but, by the interval, barely a show. I began to wonder whether Venn’s goofball shtick only works if it’s got a structure and authority, of the kind Britain’s Got Talent provides, to push against. Certainly, all his business with hi-vis vests feels thin here, in a first half padded with guest clown acts Ella Golt and Steffen Hånes.
If that were it, then at least Venn is a capable ringleader of this antic activity, as he stages gunfights with kids in the crowd, or steals punters’ phones and tapes them to his head. In the event, act two reveals some actual material, as Viggo orchestrates a wedding between audience members, and (not the strongest section) impersonates people’s cars.
The highlight revives his BGT routine having audience members introduce themselves to the soundtrack of Eminem’s My Name Is. All they say is their name, from which Viggo spins cartoonish character studies, turning punters’ latent flirtiness or taciturnity back on themselves. Here is where the man’s talent (much debated after his BGT win) lies, in the space between good cheer, performing flair and the ability to coax comedy from his audience. If tonight feels like a commune with those new fans, and a celebration of Venn’s success, more than a fully formed show – well, who would begrudge him that?
