Anil Desai's Another Night at the Movies ***

I saw Anil Desai at the Laughing Horse Launch Party and he absolutely tore the place up with his 3-4 minute set of quick fire movie impressions, so I made a decision there and then to go and see him and I managed to do so about a week later.

His material on the preview night centred around a story about a reply to a racist heckler which he took care of in character... well several characters. It was fantastic. The laughs just kept on coming.

In his hour long show you don't expect it to start that fast and keep going, you expect things to be a bit slower, building up to a big ending and that was the case when I saw his full show, with the first 15 minutes mainly introducing himself and getting to know the audience. Whilst he has a good degree of likeability, it did drag on a tad and it was relief when he got on to his impressions.

The show ambled along nicely, with an audience member shouting out random names from a deck of cards provided, and Desai obliging with a short impression most of which were well above average.

He had some fun stories about female reactions to his performances and his grand finale was well worth waiting for, he earned the cash I put in his bucket at the end!

There were two unfortunate things about the show though. The first was the slow start which I've mentioned. He could easily have squeezed more material in if he had it.

The second was that he made the classic movie mistake... putting all the best bits into the trailer.

I'm not sure if I would have rated the show differently had I not seen him use his big finish a few days earlier, but to me, if you have an hour long show and you do previews to promote that show, then you really should be confident enough in your other material to leave out the big finish, just in case people come and see you.

Anil Desai is a great performer and with a little more material he'll have the makings of a very good show in a year or two.