Review: Jack Tucker: Comedy Stand-Up Hour (Soho Theatre)

Review by Harry Bower

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I reviewed Stamptown at Soho Theatre back in January, I knew I had to be back in the audience when Zach Zucker returned to London, in whatever guise. Though just six months, it has felt like a lifetime. Now, all the way from The Big Apple™, he brings his so-bad-he’s-good comedian alter ego Jack Tucker to The Big Smoke™. Reader; it was worth the wait. 

Tucker is a loser of the highest magnitude. He fumbles through his terrible standup set with overextending dad jokes, questioning his audience’s sense of humour, and falling flat on his face, sometimes literally. At worst he is wilfully delusional, at best an unassuming yet insufferable narcissist with a microphone. This character’s comedic downfall is simply majestic to watch.

Zucker, playing Tucker (keep up), is a creator with a bashful and unapologetic disregard for calm. The jokes start before he’s even entered the stage, and I challenge anyone to leave the theatre without their face hurting, either from laughing or scowling. With a bucket load of props and sound effects Zucker is aided by a cast of reprobates, each skilled enough to merit their own show, contributing independently to the carnage. There’s the roller-skating sidekick-hype-man-fan-favourite Dylan Woodley (DylanBrand®), the iconic deadpan Jonathan Dely on jazz trumpet (yes, really). And of course, the ever-reliable Jonny Woolley is present on SFX ready to land the perfect fart joke.

If all of this sounds a bit zany then I’m not selling it hard enough. It’s a lot zany. The genius of Tucker and his ‘bad comedy’ is that these intentionally eye roll-worthy punchlines set up the biggest laughs which result from his reaction to the audience, compounding recurring jokes, bits of music, and callbacks. Those who have seen this crew before won’t be surprised to hear that tonight the show stalled on the same joke for around fifteen minutes, during which everything was derailed by a semi-improvised (presumably) sandbag gag. The “presumably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. So skilled are Zucker and Woodley in improv that they are both itching to turn literally anything into a gag. It’s near impossible to spot which bits of the show are planned and which are the pair of them riffing on something which feels funny. 

Zucker and director Woolley inject a sense of ‘live’ into the hour/seventy/eighty/ninety minutes (RIP the sleep and social lives of the Soho Theatre staff until they fly back to the States). The show has been updated to include reference to real-world events which, without spoiling it entirely, some football fans might enjoy or resent depending on your allegiance. There’s no doubt that I will have missed at least 30% of the show’s material on press night. An overrun the night prior which caused the venue to impose strict time rules on Zucker and team, combined with a very funny mid-show stalling, means he had to rush through some parts. And yet, I still need to lie down for a week to recover. I still feel like Zucker has dragged me further still into his fast, furious, borderline dangerously funny and unhinged world.  

I was trying to explain to a friend what this show was going to be like. I really struggled to define it. In a recent Comedian’s Comedian podcast episode, Zucker describes some of what he does as ‘jazz clowning’, and that’s as close to an explanation as I could ever have come up with myself. Be in no doubt; what you watch when comedian Jack Tucker is on stage is meticulously planned and rehearsed and then rehearsed and then planned. Sure, the order might change. The chaos of the moment might drag everyone to a recurring joke or a particular unique moment in the collective experience of the audience. But fundamentally, however chaotic and messy the piece seems; however unplanned and spontaneous it feels in that room - Zucker has you in the palm of his hand, exactly where he wants you. And with a snap of his fingers, he can move you on. It’s a deceptively disciplined performance from a deceptively disciplined performer, and I have so much respect for it.

If you’re a fan of laughing, I implore you to get down to Soho Theatre in the next two weeks. I left the theatre tonight feeling like nothing else could give me that feeling. Some might call that the magic of theatre; I’d call it the magic of Zach Zucker. 

Jack Tucker: Comedy Stand Up Hour plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday 27 July 2024. For more information visit: https://sohotheatre.com/events/jack-tucker-comedy-stand-up-hour/