As the music volume increased and the lights faded, I was expecting a voiceover to introduce Dominic Holland - this month's headliner for the Brew-Ha-Ha comedy events - onto the stage. However, the music just faded into silence before Holland popped onto the stage to a slightly delayed round of applause. This slightly flimsy start more or less summed up the evening: insubstantial. Audience banter Almost as soon as he started speaking, he was heckled - unusually, quite politely. Victoria, sitting a few rows from the front, was just explaining that she had heard him on the radio so thought she would come and see him. Holland dealt with her and a number of other hecklers reasonably well, but in the first 20 minutes the funniest lines came from audience members. Although Holland commented on this and, in a way, used it to his advantage, it was almost as if he didn't want to start his material because the banter was funnier than his show. When the material did start it was dreadfully slow. It was a shame because Holland obviously has the capability of being a great comedian. Essentially, he writes good observational comedy. But the punch lines would have worked so much better if the build-ups had been shorter. The fact that half the theatre was empty disappointed Holland a little, and this reflected on his standup. It seemed as if he couldn't quite be bothered to give it his all to the 150 people that did come along to see him (which, in my mind, is still a very respectable audience). Sons and computers The crowd were obviously quite tough to warm up. Holland could have benefited greatly from a support act in the first half, which would have allowed him to quicken up his material for a great hour-long set in the second. Instead, it seemed like an hour's worth of material spread over 90 minutes with much of it relying on what the audience had written in a book left on the stage during the interval. Some of the questions people had written were genuinely funny, but Holland basically just read them out without bouncing off the notes with something amusing. His material about IT and computers was the highlight of the evening to me, with some great jokes about his computer asking him stupid questions. The tales of his four inquisitive sons also got good laughs. For me though, none of the material is particularly memorable and it just didn't stand out as anything special. | 
