Latitude review: Eric Lampaert

“Anyone else feeling a bit delicate this morning?” asks Eric Lampaert. You wouldn’t know Lampaert was a little worse for wear this Sunday morning, however; he may be running on fumes but he’s getting a lot of mileage out of it.

After leaping into the crowd and intimidating the audience into moving closer to him, Lampaert launches into a bit about passing time at airports, which largely encompasses freaking out security staff while staying just the right side of a cavity search.

He doesn’t stay focused for long however; Lampaert has the attention span of a flighty gnat, but luckily his improvised lunacy is just as entertaining as his material.

Scatty, unpredictable and with a knack for utilizing his gangly form for physical comedy, Lampaert frequently abandons bits when something more interesting catches his eye; in this case, a stray, long-abandoned crisp wedged in the front of the stage, which, after sampling himself, Lampaert then force-feeds to an audience member as penance for a previous heckle.

Lolloping from stage to crowd in a Gollum-like fashion, Lampaert treads a fine, and hilarious line, between endearing himself to the crowd and making them extremely uncomfortable.

The rest of his material comes in fits and starts, as he touches on his upbringing as the horse-faced child of a jockey father (no, really), the everyday prejudice he faces being a remnant of the Neanderthal race – including a cleverly subversive rap – and how exactly gay people cause freak weather occurrences.

The beauty of Lampeart’s act is the shambling impulsiveness of it all; when you’re as naturally funny as he is, it really doesn’t matter whether he’s on topic or not.

Date of live review: Sunday 20 July 2014