JON Richardson has a knack for stopping his own show to follow a tangent. It’s a regular occurrence in a lot of stand-up sets, and a lot of the time pays off nicely.

In Richardson’s case, you were never quite sure that he’d put that much planning into it. His show centred on him being annoyed at his newfound happiness. It’s a nice theme that ran throughout, and did lead to some excellent punchlines, but he would stop and have a chat with the audience a little too often.

Admittedly, a couple of his ad-libbed lines, created from these distractions, elicited raucous laughter and applause from the packed Barbican. However, the other outcome was that Richardson would have to ease us back into the joke in order to regain the pace needed for his punchlines.

It felt a little like filler for the two-hour show, which was disappointing as Richardson’s polished pieces were absolutely brilliant in timing and sheer awkwardness of the anecdotal situation.

The subject matter of Richardson’s show can get incredibly visceral: some gross comparison of vomit and “Heinz big soup” had audience members groaning. However, it was a groan of shameful enjoyment, as Richardson delivered these sections so vividly it’s a brilliant piece of storytelling, as well as a great gag.

The end piece of his show was spectacular and had a tremendous punchline. However, for the price of an arena show, there could be less filler material that is easily forgotten a day later.

- Louise Jones