Alfie Dundas’ First Class Panic is a self-aware, verging on self-deprecating, stand-up show that finds the humour in both luxury and tragedy; Dundas discusses the perils of being an upper-class comedian and explores his own family trauma along the way. His upper-class material for the most part doesn’t come across as bragging, as he is able to poke fun at the absurdity of the attitudes and lifestyles of his himself and his peers.
However, Dundas’s focus on material about his upper-class upbringing and family life, while understandable, risks putting himself in a box. His best material comes in the second half of the show where, while interspersing quips about private jets and Uber Execs, he focuses on less class-based subject matters. The highlight is his use of mixed media, wherein he goes through a slide show of himself “mogging” Arsenal footballers as a child and uses graphs and mathematical formulas to explain how comedy comes from tragedy. Dundas makes solid use of dark humour, inviting you to laugh at jokes about his family trauma in way that feels healthy and not outrageous for the sake of it. While it’s obvious that his lived experience is going to be a strong influence on his work, Dundas’s comedy runs the risk of going stale if too much emphasis is placed on a single topic.
Some of Dundas’s material does feel slightly tired—it’s safe to say that self-aggrandising jokes about being a male feminist have been overdone by now, especially when the punchline is just that he is a feminist, and nothing more. He also didn’t cope well when these kinds of jokes didn’t bring the house down, pointing out how he thinks they’re funny, and they usually get a much bigger laugh. His annoyance at the lack of crowd response created an uncomfortable atmosphere at points, particularly given that the vast majority of these jokes did get laughs, just not as raucous laughter as he thought they deserved.
Dundas has material that is undeniably strong. His crowd work is funny and doesn’t fall into the trap of needless cruelty that some crowd work comics fall into. His use of mixed media is innovative, driving punchlines home and getting the biggest laughs of the set. The irony of First Class Panic is that, while he is able to poke fun at his upper-class upbringing, he seemingly feels a certain entitlement to laughter, which can be awkward when he doesn’t receive it.
First Class Panic is running until 30 August (excluding 18) at Bunker Three at Pleasance Courtyard.
Buy tickets here.
Image by Matt Stronge, provided to The Student as press material.
