Where have you been, Sarah Kendall?

I earmarked Sarah Kendall’s gig as one I wanted to see way back at the beginning of the season using, what I considered to be, foolproof logic.

I was sure I’d seen her before at the 2003 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. They had a night where comics could do short sets in an effort to get a gig at the next Montreal and I think she did a slot. I trust my memory – if something sticks, there’s usually a good reason.

So when I saw she was playing in Norwich I was keen to give it a go because – and this was my logic – any comic who not only keeps going for fifteen years but who now has a solo show in a good venue on the other side of the world, has got to have a lot going for them.

And Sarah Kendall does have a lot going for her. She’s good on the mike, comes across as easy company, and she’s prepared to find laughs in some pretty unpromising comedy territory. Like autism and death.

One of the things which drew me to the show was the fact she was described as a storyteller. I do love a good story. And if it’s a funny story too, even better. That’s why I like Daniel Kitson. His show about his Auntie Angela was the first comedy gig I’d ever been to where I’d laughed and cried. And this show of Sarah Kendall’s was the second.

But I still left at interval.

Let me explain why…

For a start off, she suggested it.

She opened with a warning that she was going to do last year’s Edinburgh show for the first half and the second half she was going to run-in material for her radio show. That, frankly, felt a bit cheap and she seemed so embarrassed about it that she went on to say something like “So if you don’t really like the first half, don’t come back for the second”.

That’s basically saying however good the first half is, the second will be worse. I actually liked quite a lot of the Edinburgh show but the whole gig didn’t have much of a chance after that.

It also made me question my logic for booking it. I’d assumed she’d kept going for fifteen years but her occasional lack of confidence suggested she’d become a bit of a stranger to the stage somewhere along the way.

Some of the stories and the laughs did hit the heights (I’ve never heard a funnier description of the weirdness of French kissing) but the basic problem was the billing. It wasn’t one full show, it was an Edinburgh show and some bits. It would also have been better to bill it as a one-women-show rather than a comedy gig since the stories were closer to monologues than stand-up routines and that would have made the big laughs a bonus.

Instead, I left at the interval asking – where have you been for fifteen years, Sarah Kendall? The show suggested she’d been getting on with her life rather than standing up on a stage – which, of course, is fair enough. But then it feels fair enough if I leave after the best bit too.