Jamie Kilstein: Revenge of the serfs

The show’s almost over when Jamie Kilstein tells us why liberals spend less time proselytising than their conservative counterparts – “it’s because we know we’re right!” It’s true: they are right. At least, everybody in Assembly’s Supper Room thinks so. (An unfortunate venue, incidentally: a bit too plush, and the silence greeting a geeky battlecry – “Facebook’s new format can lick my balls!” – suggests he wants to address a younger, drunker crowd than this.) Nobody here is leaving in disgust because they think gays don’t deserve rights; there’s no evangelical to throw things because Kilstein says that some things in the bible aren’t true. We are the definition of the converted, so it’s a shame that he spends so long preaching.

This isn’t to say it's not funny. Kilstein is compelling as he stamps his petulant way about the stage, his voice occasionally cracking with frustration as he bemoans an example of neo-liberal idiocy. Importantly, he manages to be simultaneously irate and charming. But it’s nothing new to be told that Obama isn’t perfect after all, or that people who think the NHS evil are mistaken.

It’s not all political. He gets brilliantly sidetracked, ranting about how his brother sends him innocuous-looking emails with pictures of old men fellating each other. And he concludes with a touching confession, about recently realising that he was the cause, not the victim, of his adolescent fights with his father. Kilstein is likeable and gets angry about the right things. But this slightly nonplussed audience doesn’t quite share his indignation, leaving him rather isolated as he rages onstage.