Joe Bor: In Search of the Six Pack

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Unnerved by the discovery that his girlfriend’s ex was a buff Aussie plumber called Mitch, English standup Joe Bor has been motivated this past year to go in search of that which every man desires but few have the energy and dedication to attain: a six-pack. This show roughly charts his quest to lose weight and tone up, while serving as a platform for a bunch of material broadly relating to whether looks really matter more than personality.

If that all sounds a bit hackneyed, it is – and worse. There’s no taking away from Bor’s confident flow and slick delivery, both of which must have been instrumental in him landing the job as studio warm-up act for BBC1’s The Graham Norton Show. But the majority of his punchlines are tamer than a sleeping guide dog and draw a wince more often than they do a laugh, while some his video skits and songs—head-scratchingly pointless filler ahoy—are full-blown tumbleweed moments.

Bor’s topical quip about how the only way a riot might occur in his native Crouch End is if the local Waitrose runs out of hummus has the ignominy of being variation number 12,847 (or thereabouts) on this week’s most done-to-death Fringe joke. Suffice to say, he never gets that six-pack in the end, and nor does it matter to his missus. Watching him pound the treadmill for an hour may have been more diverting than this.