Miles Jupp is erudite and a delight to listen to, with a delicious turn of phrase that is for the most part delivered in a mellifluous, patrician tone.
His topics are not the most earth-shattering – life as a father to four children, his minor fame as a character on a kid’s TV show, the ill-judged pronouncements of Sebastian Coe – but they are artfully told, with some witty barbs puncturing the smooth surface.
The greatest risk for Jupp is that his cultivated dead-pan, meticulously-observed style actually becomes dull: one routine on the enhanced social status of coffee drags on with few redemptive laughs. Sometimes the pedestrian, even retold with charm, just isn’t entertaining.
It says something about Norwich’s cultural life that as smart a comedian as Jupp can command three full houses at the Playhouse, and if he applies some judicious editing to his set he’ll leave his audiences happy.
