Review for Simon Amstell Numb Live at the BBC

Simon Amstell is hilarious no matter what he does. Whether he's making celebrities cry on Popworld, being clever on Never Mind the Buzzcocks or his wonderful writing for Skins and Grandma's House he is great. One of the areas where he is amazing is as a standup comedian. He has a ver theatrical way of performing almost like Spalding Gray, not so much off the cuff adlib jokes, but a carefully written and acted performance.

This one, filmed live at the BBC shows Amstell's problems with his father, his life, his ability to buy make up and just being happy. "I asked a taxi driver why are you happy. He said I'm always happy because I know there's always other people worse off than me? Yes that's why I always enjoy eating, because I know there's always starving people in the world."

His comedy is a mix of the pains of life and how he deals with it which is just hilarious and at times painful. "This is my life" he says when describing a bad breakup and broken washing machine. Later when talking about drugs he describes morphine as "love without the bother". And his Dad who's breeding again "Incase we run out of Jews".

Numb in New York is a nice look at how he's been received in America. This is pretty interesting and shows that they do find him funny and it would have been nice for them to have filmed one of the shows there. An interview with Alan Yentob is great, though a little short.

Simon Amstell's show is a wonderful hour of angst and just hilarious. His jokes are all on point and he's never flat with anything he does. The lack of any gimmicks or anything like that makes the jokes even funnier as they rely on the language and the delivery and this is something Amstell has perfected and will no doubt continue to perfect.