27 May (Wednesday) - The Lewis Schaffer Show

Lewis Shaffer and his favourite funny friends.

Doors: 8pm

Show:8.30p

Tickets: £5

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Reviews:

Few comedians can grab a show by the scruff of the neck quite like Lewis Schaffer. And absolutely no other comedian can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like Schaffer. The Brooklyn-born, Peckham-based stand-up admitted on stage that his previous gigs have been described as brilliant before “descending into nothingness” — a fair assessment of last night’s proceedings.

There were frequent moments when this test-flight for new material looked like soaring. During a brisk routine on the complexities of race issues following the US election, for example, he hit a number of satirical bullseyes. Elsewhere his middle-aged Jewish New Yorker schtick beautifully captured both the neuroses of Woody Allen and the infectious cadences of Jackie Mason. Yet, too often, his train of thought was thoroughly derailed and he went way off-topic.

Something interesting is clearly going on here. Schaffer undeniably has funny bones, he just lacks discipline. As delightful as it was to learn of his prostate problems, this was probably not part of the planned set. He was much better when he channelled his frustrations and angst into exploring the differences between Brits and Americans. He wants more chums, he confessed, but he has only lived here for eight years and repressed Brits take nine years to make a new friend.

Schaffer also clearly enjoys doing dark comedy when the mood takes him, tossing in the odd Holocaust grenade here and Shannon Matthews bombshell there, and seems to revel in winding up his audience to get an angry response.

It feels at times as if he is determined to sabotage his own show. He would be infinitely funnier if he provoked less and focused more, though probably a lot less fascinating.

Evening Standard - Bruce Dessau 5 March 2009

It used to be that Lewis Schaffer was considered something of a comics’ comic – but for all the wrong reasons. He had a reputation not just for dying, but dying so spectacularly, that every other stand-up in the room would be compelled to watch, enjoying his often self-inflicted suffering with huge dollops of schadenfreude.

Now, though, he seems to be finding a fresh focus, which is bad news for his sadistic colleagues, but better news for comedy-goers.

Not that he’s found an exciting new approach, in fact it’s almost as old as stand-up itself: a brash, opinionated Jewish New Yorker bitching about the world in punchy, acerbic one-liners, while subtly revealing his own failings.

He has the confidence – arrogance? – of knowing his point of view is correct, and won’t hold back on sharing it. Such unambiguity gives him a natural authority and his material a black-and-white clarity. And coming from where he does, the short, sharp rhythms of stand-up are in his DNA.

He’s lived in Britain for seven years, and this has given him an insight into the way our national psyche works, which he combines to good effect with gags about his homeland. All this, and he’s unabashedly self-absorbed, too, getting plenty of bitching about his ex-wife off his chest, in some delightfully bitter asides.

With a jagged edge to his gags and a natural command over the audience, Schaffer is on his way back…

The UK Comedy Guide June 2007