Fuelling a stand up show purely by crowd suggested topics might seem like a risky proposition but it’s a task Andy Zaltzman is up to in what was an epic two hour gig. The concept of Satirist for Hire was simple: audience members emailed in anything they wanted sent up and Zaltzman would oblige with custom routines written to order. He even took last minute requests before the show proper. Of course as he’s one half of the satirical podcast The Bugle (the other being John Oliver who seems to have vanished into thin air) he has a huge reservoir of current affairs mockery to draw on.

Tonight on the menu was the country of Australia, satire itself and the incompetence of one particular dog. Invariably, tried and tested routines are shoehorned into this apparently ever shifting structure and if you’re a fan of his and you’re familiar with his podcasts – and the number of Bugle t-shirts in the crowd certainly indicated that made up a substantial amount of the crowd – some of these might seem familiar.

Zaltzman does have a weakness for gimmicks but this time, unlike other shows, his bit using a subtext detector pays dividends due to some strong writing and succeeds even if it’s not quite part of the Satirist for Hire remit. He can be also wilfully esoteric, dropping references to obscure sportsmen to make convoluted points.

Unlike many topical comedians, his satire does have teeth and interrogates the ideas behind politics rather than merely mocking the politicians themselves. This is a rarity and is refreshing in the current scene of impotent panel shows. He does do this with an and idiosyncratic style that certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste but if you can get on his wavelength and have something you want mocked (even if that might mean with a cavalcade of puns) then you can do a lot worse than hire this satirist.

Paul Manderlay