Alfie Brown: Sensitive Man at Soho Theatre review - motoring towards a masterpiece

The brutally candid comedian returns with a slice of first-rate contrarianism
Alfie Brown
handout
Bruce Dessau11 November 2021

Alfie Brown has always been the kind of brutally candid comedian who does not steer clear of difficult subjects. In fact his preferred approach is to swerve straight into them. His latest show, Sensitive Man, maintains that tradition, this time homing in on topics ranging from mental health to white male privilege and, a classic Brown curveball, Formula 1 racing.

Brown is not someone to ease his audience in gently. Instead he starts by explaining that just before Covid his partner – fellow performer Jessie Cave – decided she wanted a third child. He, on the other hand, was reticent to say the least. Eventually a deal was struck. She got the baby, he got some, let’s delicately call it ‘me time’, in Australia. Until the pandemic scuppered Brown’s trade-off.

Feeling hard done by is a theme of Sensitive Man. Now aged 34 Brown is nostalgic for his wrinkle-free, carefree twenties and resentful of those still enjoying their youth. Looking at people younger than him he sees them “ostentatiously waving around wads of time”. Even when venting his spleen – in fact particularly when venting his spleen – Brown has an eloquent turn of phrase.

He is nothing if not a first-rate contrarian. Going against the grain comes naturally to him and he saves a sizeable tranche of rage for the popularity of men talking publicly about their mental health. Surely this is a good thing. Except that Brown is bipolar and feels put out that his unique selling point is not so unique any more.

Brown is self-indulgent while also being self-aware
handout

All of this might make him sound indulgent, narcissistic and in need of constant validation. And all of that is true. Fortunately he has the self-knowledge to know it and the skill to mock himself for it. He delivers his riffs with such vivid verbal flourishes, ensuring that he is usually the fall guy, that it is impossible not to enjoy what he says even when your every fibre disagrees with it.

There are flashes of Russell Brand in some of his grandiose flights of fancy and echoes of Stewart Lee in both the repetition of expressions and the way that Brown adopts a ludicrously provocative position onstage almost as if he is playing a character. He is no comedy clone though. He is very much a distinctive voice in his own right.

For the last few years Brown has threatened to deliver a masterpiece of a show. Sensitive Man is still not quite that masterpiece. But it is very much motoring in the right direction.

Soho Theatre, to Saturday, sohotheatre.com

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in