Comedy Review: Russell Kane in Chuckl Comedy at Nottingham Playhouse

Another sold-out Friday night of Chuckl Comedy at Nottingham Playhouse brings more great value for money with four great comedians. Compere Darius Davis is chatty and convivial as he kick starts the evening, activating the crowd with his energised stage presence.  He professionally mines and milks the front row for the comedy that lurks there. Latecomers are ridiculed, cross-examined. They make mental notes not to be late again.  He swears like a teenager on public transport without his parents for the first time. But he does a great job in turning this packed-out Playhouse crowd into an up for it, eager and engaged audience.

Three times -award winner, Anglo-Canadian Tony Law is a revelation with his absurd, surreal silliness and whimsical nonsense, that has this Darius-energised crowd instantly laughing out loud. His rapid shifts between ideas, his routine’s self-awareness in between impressions of fog horns and motorbikes is a breath of fresh air in ways of making people laugh. But don’t be fooled. He works hard to deliver what appears to be a shambolic, disparate show, full of nonsense that breaches the fourth wall. His flippant and bombastic routine is underpinned by a great intelligence, perfect timing and a bravery to experiment with the form. Standouts are his take on an array of various shades of estuary English and Yorkshire accents which left me thinking was he really Canadian or was that an act?

Wendy Wason is a palette cleanser of a comedian after the high-octane delivery of the first two acts. Wendy is charming, less frantic and naturally engaging. A menopausal mother of three from a thirty- year-long marriage. She delights this audience as she slags off her husband and three sons in a way that many will identify with. Her standout is how she takes us all down the Covid memory lane. How we all obeyed the rules, but Downing Street was twinned with Ayia Napa. Parents learnt that teachers weren’t the problem and drinking Rose at 10am, became appropriate behaviour whilst home schooling our kids. She has us laughing out loud recanting at how her father, like many men of the 1970’s would drive to the pub, get bladdered and drive home telling her not to worry because ‘the car knows the way home’. Wendy’s routine is largely based on her family. Her brilliance is to be able to identify what punters will find funny about family and deliver it with acute, well-honed timing in way that leaves some asking themselves should I be laughing at this?

A second alcohol break and this Friday night, up for crowd are baying for the headline act: Russell Kane. He doesn’t disappoint. Russell is immediately zipping about the stage with his trademark high-octane ballet dancing squirrel on military grade amphetamine routine. He’s clearly done his local research. HP Sauce, Lace, Ibuprofen and Boots are used to extract the local laughs. Nothing is off table tonight. Russell Brand, Greg Wallace and how Gen Zed are not screwing because they’re not drinking. Kane’s laugh out rants are aimed at the one-dimensional misogynistic men who become increasingly embittered between thirty and sixty. Woefully, inadequate men who are targeted with the same virulent verbal assault as he reserved for the Gen Zed generation, that are portrayed as increasingly, upsettingly ineffective.

Russell takes pride in explaining his feminised side, how he can cry at films. How he pities the younger men whose current polar options within toxic masculinity are manosphere or veganism. An evening of excellent comedy is concluded when his high-octane incisive wit is tempered with his impression of Keir Starmer. But the biggest laugh is reserved for how when he uses the exact same voice for Tom Hardy’s Reggie Kray pub scene  in Legends when Reg shouts: “I come here for a shootout. A proper shootout with some proper men. Like Colonel Custer and Geronimo, you ever heard of them?” Never in my wildest days could I have guessed that Keir Starmer and an angry Reggie Kray spoke the same. Kane is a cherry on the cake of a tremendous nights of value for money night of comedy from Chuckl. More please.

Russel Kane headlined the Chuckl night at Nottingham Playhouse on Friday 24 April 2026.