Mike Rice doesn’t provide an audience with a routine as much as he does a reminder of why asking a strange man in the corner of the pub, rubbing scampi fries on himself and groaning, is not the man to sort your next round. But poke the bear. Converse with it. You’ll come out dumber, Rice says as much in his show, and he means it. But he means well, as all fishy crisp-smelling men do. Give it the pint of John Smith’s it so craves, and you’ll hear stories not too dissimilar to the tales Rice tells on the Union Chapel stage. What a place to hear of smuggling MDMA through customs, an eerily solid Donald Trump impression, and an extended bit on the intimacies of sex through the lens of someone whose entire set is built on getting away with saying all sorts of nastiness, thanks to a twinkle in the eye seen in this Cruel Little Man set.
For those who’ve followed Rice’s career beyond the stage, be it with previous stand up specials or the immensely funny Guide to Parenting podcast, you’ll know what to get from Cruel Little Man. Is he cruel? Oh, yes. Little? Not a chance. He could pulverise any audience member and very nearly does when a couple head off to the bar. Plotting with audience members, it’s clear to see Rice works best when he allows himself off the beaten path and into material which comes out of the blue. He doesn’t stumble through it, he looks and feels like a man with a gift for the sudden change of tone. It’s these moments which feel stronger than the pre-written material because it comes from the genuine energy of the room, and the Union Chapel building is full of strong fans in the know on how Rice presents himself as a caricature of modern life. Be it dating apps, sobriety or how we feel our way through the modern world, there’s a self-irreverence crucial to Rice’s comedy style.
All of this works so well because Rice is comfortable, desperate, even, to be the butt of the joke. He comes out as a nasty character. Man? He wouldn’t say so for much of the latter half of the show. Whenever he heads off on those tangents, calling back to jokes he himself has denounced at later moments in the set, it only adds to the sense of mania which Rice has specialised. Being in the know, knowing these stories to be true and even tame compared to the tales he tells on the podcast he co-hosts with Vittorio Angelone, adds a terrifying extra layer. Those loops to previous material, the shame and tongue-in-cheek stylishness to breaking those taboo subjects is a speciality Rice features often in his Cruel Little Man show. It’s not observational comedy, it’s the sort of chatter you’d get from a man dribbling down your shirt at an after party, and that’s quite sincere if you’re in the right mood.
Union Chapel is in the mood for Rice’s nastiness, and that’s a lovely atmosphere to be in. Opener Jacob Hawley points out the communal spirit before launching into some exceptionally well-plotted stories of becoming a father. All those stresses could not offer a better contrast to what Rice gets up to, from his olive oil catastrophe to the lessons we learn when dropping acid. Cruel Little Man does see Rice play up the title of the show, shadow boxing his way across the stage like a man riding on a wave of spice and self-belief. But what Rice often does in this show is backs himself into a corner, gets to that point of no return, and tries to heave himself out of it unscathed. That’s part of the charm, and being in the know on the intention, the honesty of the man and the hilarity of the scenarios he puts himself into while never, truly, letting on the choice to put himself there, is sensational work.
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