Review: Omid Djalili, Tour Of Duty, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday (From York Press)

Review: Omid Djalili, Tour Of Duty, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday

11:40am Saturday 21st January 2012 in Comedy By Charles Hutchinson

OMID Djalili returns to stand-up after three and a half years away, and so much has happened in that time.

The effervescent British-Iranian comedian covers it all at pell-mell speed in Tour Of Duty, spinning out anecdotes from playing Fagin in Oliver! and his film role in The Infidel 2, and making light of “selling out” in the moneysupermarket.com adverts.

The age of Twitter is acknowledged by a large screen with the latest tweets on his account, the screen then doubling up for film, comment and even punchlines at his expense.

His material is not always piercingly sharp, but Djalili is a fantastic mimic, both in physical movement and in his repertoire of voices that takes him around the world.

He uses music too, not in the spoof song mode of a Mitch Benn or a Bill Bailey, but in his adroit bongo playing that provides a surprising outlet for comedy in a surreal routine involving a pizza order.

State-of-the-nation political analysis and his latest thoughts on world affairs are still to the fore, but court jester Djalili is never heavy on matters British, Iranian, Jewish or Scottish.

Indeed he has condensed his material on ethnicity to a tight seven minutes, his mantra being that we should all seek to be happy. “Life is a process,” he says, “Not a finished product.” Much like this pleasingly erratic, anything-could-happen show.