Lembit Opik takes the stage

Perhaps Lembit Opik turning from politics to comedy was not such a surprise. After all, this is the man who played cheeky boy to a Cheeky Girl and had a penchant for backing doomed leadership campaigns within his own party, with the effect of Norman Wisdom’s incompetent Norman Pitkin character coming out as your running mate. With such comedy heritage, what could possibly go wrong?

This was entirely the approach of the former MP who lost one of the Liberal Democrats' safest seats in last month’s election and so missed out on the consequent coalition jamboree. “It’s like Dr Pepper” he told those assembled at his press conference yesterday morning before the evening gig at the Backstage Comedy Club, adding the requisite tagline, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Having warned the press pack that he had “fifteen or two minutes [of material] depending on how it goes” the irrepressible 45-year-old was true to his word, making the fifteen minute mark—and the worst that happened was that he was mildly amusing. In my experience as a comedy critic there have been worse open spots than this, worse professional spots on occasion. Not being atrocious is a good start.

Nevertheless, Opik’s opus was more after dinner speech meets career resume than a stand-up routine. Suited and booted and sporting a Lib Dem rosette, he initially tried to top the laughter poll with a commentary about doing the gig rather than, well, doing the gig. Among various thank-yous in advance he mentioned his comedy agent (the club MC and writer Robert Meakin) for allegedly texting him after the election with the message, “Your best bet now is stand up comedy.”

Those hoping that Opik might offer an intriguing perspective on recent political events would be disappointed. There were some slight efforts to tackle MPs expenses but any thread was lost in the thematically erratic narrative that often characterises early live stand up gigs.

This is not to say that there were not bright moments, and some of his remarks even promised momentum towards a theme. When Opik thanked “13,976 Tory voters for kick starting a career I never knew I wanted” there was a great opportunity to jump off into some material relating to his life as a constituency MP or, more obviously, a foray into his take on the election and subsequent Clegg-Cameron love-in. Sadly, like his Montgomeryshire seat, he didn’t take it.

The significance of the remark, however, was that it speaks volumes about how Opik intends to use this much-trumpeted appearance; it’s surely more in the name of celebrity than comedy? When I asked him, at his press conference, whether this was just a segue into vehicles like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here he was decidedly sheepish in his response.

To anyone wanting to know what Lembit did next my advice is, if you can bear to, to keep an eye on reality TV. And as for seeing Opik on Mock The Week or Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow? While it’s too early to discount, it might take a coalition with Frankie Boyle to pull it off.