Broke, Useless & Sterile comedy review: Good-hearted fun
A sweet show from the comedian (and Pilot spokesperson)
The rule of threes is nothing new in comedy and so it’s super handy that Nick Capper has thoughtfully assigned a title to each third of his hour at The Howling Hour. Broke: well, goes without saying that a stand-up comedian isn’t exactly rolling in the moolah. Useless: can’t turn the notifications off in his ADHD mind, thus inducing helplessness at standard household tasks. And sterile: ironically, given he’s the spokesdude for Pilot, the swimmers ain’t swimming either.
But here’s where it gets clever, because Capper knows how to pack the laughs in, with a take on the world that’s just left-of-centre enough to be surprising and familiar all at the same time. It’s good-hearted too: he’s just a normal, if slightly shambolic, bloke who’s trying to put good things into the world. He loves his missus and can’t believe his luck when Pilot decide to gift him a (heavily sponsored) dirt bike in lieu of a fee, while a bit about anxiety feels heartfelt and gently illuminating.
He twitches and hunches on stage, a bag of energy, which is put to good use in a series of seemingly random outbursts: the ADHD mind made real, blurting out whatever happens to be sitting there. But even this feels thought-through, smart. In fact, Capper’s great. The hour goes by in a flash, the crowd laughs pretty much non-stop, and there’s enough heart in there that you feel you’re laughing with him at the absurdities of the world, rather than at his life, as the title might suggest.
Broke, Useless & Sterile concluded February 22 at The Howling Owl.