A very British man from Iran

10:48am Saturday 12th April 2008

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Omid Djalili, The Lowry, 3.5 out of 5

A vast array of cultural delights were on offer on Friday night.

There was a strange support performance from Boothby Graffoe before Omid took to the stage. I'm not one to usually warm to comedian's who try and mix music and jokes but this acoustic guitarist utilised his looping pedal with the set admirably. Saying that, he failed to entice the audience into singing along with him. Dry and average, but room to grow.

The initial impression of Omid was one of energy and boundless impersonations. True, it is not just British or Iranian dialects that he can muster, and while we heard Cockney, Manc, Scouse, Geordie,Yorkshire and Scottish accents, he also took us through Croat, Polish, Nigerian and Indian variations.

As you may have guessed, there is a multi-cultural theme to the show, as Omid looks at our sense of Britishness as well as what it means to be of a different ethnicity in this glorious nation.

The political thread is intrigueing but not too heavy, and although at one point it felt like he was pandering to the football hooligan, he always seemed to turn the point on it's head and show that every viewpoint has it's pitfalls and contradictions.

There's almost a futility to his humour, one that suggests there's only so much philosophising you can do, you may as well just settle on comedy.

He has picked the right vocation, and definitely has the ability to appeal with the common consensus. There are, though, parts missing and the attempts to engage with the audience toward the end were a little misplaced and showed that while his show is a culmination of hard work, improvisation may not be his forte.

The customary belly dance brought the much-needed visual element, and provided a sound finale, but also showed that his ponderings on identity had run too much. It was, perhaps, repetitive to return to the suicide bomber subject.

Entertaining and well constructed but by no means the complete package.