Shaftesbury theatre, London
Hi-vis hijinks are here aplenty as the Britain’s Got Talent winner revisits his triumphant routines
It’s been quite the year for Viggo Venn. Twelve months ago, he tells us, he was playing in a pub across the street to a crowd of 14 people. Tonight, he’s filled a West End theatre with fans who love him for Britain’s Got Talent, on which the Norwegian clown gambolled to victory in a fluorescent vest. If you liked his One More Time routine on telly, you’ll be in clover tonight: Venn flogs it for most of the first act (and plenty of the second). It starts to look as if our shock-haired host isn’t here with a comedy set, but for a laying on of hands, as he criss-crosses the auditorium ministering to his hi-vis devotees.
With technical crew forever scurrying across the stage and Venn among the crowd, it’s chaotic – but, by the interval, barely a show. I began to wonder whether Venn’s goofball shtick only works if it’s got a structure and authority, of the kind Britain’s Got Talent provides, to push against. Certainly, all his business with hi-vis vests feels thin here, in a first half padded with guest clown acts Ella Golt and Steffen Hånes.
