Chris Fleming @ Glee Club, Glasgow
US YouTuber and stand-up Chris Fleming tests an energetic but unpolished show on a Glasgow crowd
Best known for his viral stand-up clips and his YouTube channel, featuring tiny-mouthed suburban mother Gayle Waters-Waters, Chris Fleming brings his comedy to Glasgow for the very first time.
There's no denying Fleming cuts a funny shape. His lanky frame and Garth Algar features serve his surreal observations well, and endear him to the Glaswegian crowd. Teamed with a confession that he’s giddily jetlagged and a show which flits from idea to idea without a clear path forward, his comedic style feels well suited to his current state.
Fleming’s comedy has much in common with the likes of Sam Campbell, but presents his particular brand of strangeness with less hostility and monotone. The anecdote he spins about a jaunt to a high-class hat store could have been dreamt up by any observational comic, but Fleming brings a ‘so strange it must be true’ authenticity (and genuine receipts) which others fail to replicate.
His best work of the hour is less observation and more stream of mad, mad consciousness. In a sharp break from format, Fleming serenades us with two tuneless karaoke songs – one about luxury cinemas, the other involving an unusual haunted house goer. The first is tear-streamingly funny but means the show peaks at approximately fifteen minutes in, whilst the second song closes the hour, circling the heights of the previous track but never landing them quite as well.
Icebreaker-lite material on not understanding the Scottish accent feels oddly hack compared to the inventiveness of the rest of the show, though the crowd are much more receptive to it than expected, whilst a set piece about car wash validation feels like a new section which could do with punching up. Both bring a stop-start work-in-progress vibe to an otherwise good hour.
When this show hits the high notes, it completely slaps. When it falls flat, it feels like a testing ground for someone with potential.
Reviewed 19 June 2024 at Glee Club, Glasgow
Follow Chris Fleming at @chrisflemingfleming on Instagram and TikTok, @chrisfluming on Twitter, @Chuntzit on YouTube