Rhod Gilbert's Bulging Barrel of Laughs

Rhod Gilbert’s bulging barrel of laughs is a comedy show being aired on radio 2, featuring Rhod Gilbert (surprisingly enough) and his co-presenters, Greg Davies and Lloyd Langford. Rhod has a bulging barrel out of which they pull out ‘laughs’ (or topics as I like to call them) to which they relate little anecdotes.

OK, so let me get this off my chest before anything else: I simply cannot stand the little jingle they use when Lloyd plunges his hand into Rhod’s bulging barrel of laughs. At first, it sounds like some bongo drums, followed by the raucous chattering of a group of chimps, ending with a run up a harp. On closer listening, I managed to deduce that the raucous chattering of chimps, was in fact meant to be people laughing. The whole the thing is just overly cheesy as though they just put the first three sound effects they came across together and decided to use it as their jingle.

The first ‘laugh’ to be pulled out the barrel, is ‘Confessions’, where listeners and audience members have divulged their most embarrassing moments to be shared with the world. Rhod, Lloyd and Greg all add in stories of their own (can you guess who once tried to colour their eye in with a highlighter to try and raise their cool status at school?!) and at the end, they choose a loser of the week, crowning the person they deem to have the most embarrassing story.

The next feature, Rhod’s ‘believe it or not’, seems slightly pointless to me, it’s more stupid than funny, as Rhod tries to convince us that he is an naive internet trawler and believes that humans can store electricity in themselves after reading up about it online. This for me is the weakest part of the show and would do better to put forward a really strange fact (kind of QI-esque) rather than joking about something that has clearly been made up.

Mark Watson then does the guest stand-up comedy spot, and I really think they picked the right guy for this section of the show. From booing impolite people, to being susceptible to chocolate digestive bribes, this guy really does make me chuckle. He also comes out with the best quote of the show when showing his disapproval at people who try to order thing that aren’t on a menu: “A menu is not meant to be a springboard for the whims of your imagination” - something that anyone who has worked in a restaurant can relate to. After hearing Mark on this I actually went to find more of his stand-up.

Greg’s indecent proposal is next up, asking questions that make you look at your moral values. This time they are debating whether getting to live forever would be worth it if it meant that you had to take the chuckle brothers along with you to every funeral that you attended. Not as strong as some of the other features, and doesn’t really come to any kind of conclusion.

‘It’s a set up’ follows the same format as Mock the Weeks ‘If this is the answer, what is the question’, where Rhod gives out the answer to a question, and the three presenters then come up with amusing questions that could’ve been asked to come up with that reply. I won’t spoil it for you but I recommend listening to the questions that fit with the answer “footprints in the custard”, that one tickled me in particularly. This section works well, but as mentioned earlier, it’s not an original format, which disappoints me slightly.

Sarah Millican talks about one of the 6 stages of women. Now I’m not a fan of Sarah Millican, so maybe I already had this part of the review done in my head before I listened to it, but I just don’t find her funny. This piece ends with a thoughtful motivational message to women, which really doesn’t fit in with the comedy, and kid of ruins it all for me. She says she’s there to balance out all the male comedians, and it certainly does just feel like they have done it for that, rather than finding someone that can tell a joke and add a new dimension to the show.

The last section of comedy brings us to ‘Rhod’s rant club’ where we see Rhod Gilbert at his best. Anyone who has seen Rhod do any stand-up knows that he loves a good rant, and he does the topic of irritating products justice when he tells us all that is wrong with the concept of a toothbrush with a built in computer. Lloyd’s piece on the world’s sharpest knife also deserves a mention here, I love his fear of being trusted with what he sees as a very dangerous object, but this is Rhod’s place to shine.

The CD rounds up with the a song from the house band, Kid British, who we have seen a couple of times previously within the show. I think this ska ensemble work well with the comedy setting, breaking up the show with easy-listening ditties about being lost in London and living for the weekend. They even bring us a few good laughs when interviewed by Rhod and are a well thought out addition to this show.