Who: John Hastings
Where: The Comedy Store, Manchester
Why:
John Hastings is like the comedy version of Manchester United's 1994 double-winning side. Sir Alex Ferguson proudly boasted that team would out-skill you if you came to play, and out-fight you if you came to scrap. Either way, they'd win.
Hastings is in no way confrontational as he introduces himself to the weekend crowd. Rather he is disarming, affable and warm. His baseball cap and casual attire give him a boyish air, which nicely offsets the fact that he looks a bit like the Cobra Kai's star pupil.
A vocal crowd at the Comedy Store have grown emboldened as the night has gone on, and Hastings enjoys some good-natured banter before segueing into his routine, which is brilliant. He has a wonderful way of breaking situations apart and putting them back together with a weird new logic.
Alas some gobby twats still want to share the limelight. As a seasoned MC, Hastings entertains some of the comments before circling back to his material. It doesn't stop, so he clearly thinks, fuck it, let's have some fun. The rest of the night is superbly improvised and interactive.
Hastings orchestrates the audience like it's a rowdy philharmonic, switching from breezy to brutal without ever losing the room. He has a gag about his comfort with social awkwardness and it's clearly based on truth, as he revels in disarray like a king of chaos.
Hastings' Fringe show this year was called
'Float Like a Butterfly, John Hastings Like a Bee', presumably for the outrageous pun. But it weirdly sums him up; he can charm you with an evening of polished material, or riff you into submission. Either way, he wins.
We saw John Hastings at the Comedy Store in Manchester. You can find out more about his future dates here.
