Rich Hall is an American frontiersman of British comedy, and he is at the top of his game. Far from being a finely honed act of precise beats and crafted material, 3:10 to Humour is more like ‘An Evening with Rich Hall’ a mad imbroglio of country music, caustic political commentary, and lightning wit. Because so much of what he does well is off the cuff, the chances are that there won’t be two shows quite alike on this whole tour, rendering the title of the show irrelevant. The shit pun on the Christian Bale film 3:10 to Yuma is presumably used to set the scene for Hall’s Wild West comedic style (and to facilitate marketing materials).
And, as far as comic material is concerned, that’s not really what you’re going for. You feel like you’re just talking to a bitter old drinking buddy, completely comfortable with the jaded tributaries that give the show its buckshot bricolage of humour. Hall is a master of improvisation and cavalier tangents. You really trust that anything thrown at him will be twisted into a witticism, tinged with his trademark deadpan delivery; after one member of the audience gave a lengthy explanation about Didcot’s partial ownership of a power station, Hall complained “You see? Most comedians get hecklers. I get footnotes.”
Nowhere does his mixture of comic design and improvisational daring come together better than in his country songs, which are ingeniously adapted to that evening’s particular performance. At one point, he forgot a rhyme that he’d come up with in the interval that he’d intended to end a song on that was addressed to a plumber sat in the front row. Hysterics ensued as he asked his guitar-god-cum-tour-manager Rob Childs to be reminded of the words, live on stage, which he failed to recall for a good five minutes. It’s not fair on other comedians that Hall has the crowd falling out of their chairs laughing even when his act is going wrong. Of course, there is some fairly tired material about the horse meat scandal and a gag I’ve heard a number of times before (including from my Dad) about a certain unfortunate headline in an Irish newspaper, but that’s permissible just to be in the presence of a comic as good as this.
I don’t know who wouldn’t enjoy this. Go see Rich Hall, he’s funny as Hell.