Jack Barry was the opening act for the Mae Martin show ‘SAP’ at the Leicester Square Theatre, and we all know that you can’t judge a clown by a 20-minute warm-up set.

So why am I writing this review? Well firstly, it’s because he was a memorable character within ‘Feel Good’, which is one of the best TV shows I have seen since ‘This Life’. But mostly it’s because he walked out on stage in front of a charged-up audience chomping at the bit to see their headliner, and he delivered. Jack Barry is a lot of fun to watch.

Our clown emerged from the wings wearing one of the bold suits that his character wears in ‘Feel Good’ and started his routine by explaining how he had to audition to essentially play himself in the hit show. Material which, as he said, could have fallen flat if the crowd didn’t know the show. Fortunately for him I think it was safe to say that everyone in the audience had watched both series through at least twice… and yes, that includes me.

He then moved on to some standard Covid gags before absolutely hitting his stride when he began to talk about his Argentinian girlfriend and their relationship – there were a number of charming and funny anecdotes that really hit home and when he found an Argentinian audience member to play off, he did so with aplomb.

As I said at the start you can’t really judge a clown by 20 minutes of material, but it at least lets you decide if you would take a chance on their full show sometime… and based on this, we would.

Clown Stars: (-unrated-)

 @Leicester Square Theatre, London