Nik Coppin - Half Blak

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Most of Nik Coppin’s show is like an awkward first date. Nik is obviously an amiable guy with a good sense of humour, desperately grasping for anything to keep his unreceptive audience rapt. This probably explains why his set is mostly just a mess of aimless personal anecdotes and pub quiz trivia.

The central theme of the show is racism, which Coppin emphasises with his impressive repertoire of stories in which a stranger tells him, unaware that he is in fact, half bla(c)k, a terribly racist joke. These situations appear to be perfect times for Coppin to flex his wit and bite back with some scathing retort, but the story simply ends with a shocked expression and a little righteous indignation. The stories elicit a response from the audience, but it’s usually just that distinctive moan of empathy that crowds emanate when they need to convey how non-racist they are.

Coppin’s second favourite thing to do is to enlighten the audience with some strange-but-true nugget that he believes will endear him to the viewers. Now, even regurgitating common trivia has a little potential to be entertaining, but Coppin’s conclusions are rarely clever and never worth the build-up. More often than not, some bit from QI is recited and the room is left in an awkward silence during which the audience is waiting for a joke whilst Coppin waits for laughs.

Unfortunately for him, this ends up as the kind of date where both parties pay half the bill and go home alone.