Rob Auton is an award-winning writer, actor and podcaster. In 2020, he started “The Rob Auton Daily Podcast”, winning a gold award for Best Daily Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, having recorded two million listens. With such a reputation, I was delighted to be invited to watch his latest production: The Crowd Show.

The performance took place on Friday 14th October at the Ventnor Exchange, Isle of Wight. The cosy size of the venue made the experience even more engaging, with only a few spectators having quickly grabbed the few tickets available, for a rather intimate atmosphere that could only encourage even more audience involvement. Having decided to sit on a very inviting red velvet sofa I felt really at ease and ready to take it all in. There were obviously many people in the audience who had been looking forward to it for a while and could hardly contain their excitement.

I had read that since 2012 Rob has chosen a specific theme for his shows and challenged himself to create an hour of material about each subject. These had resulted in sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe as Rob continues to amaze his audience through his unique use of spoken word and humour.

Friday’s show started with him “hiding” among the audience. He went on to get to know the crowd and giving us some insight into how others had viewed his performance, good and bad.

The audience is a big part of the show. The challenge was in making the audience engage with him, but not take over the show. A fine balance that was overall achieved. His jokes will do more than make you laugh, they will make you feel worthy of the role you play in the world.

He brings us all together. It feels as if he is your mate having a bit of laugh and a whinge at the same time. He is very confident but also quite self-deprecating, making him very approachable. In his performance he comes across as laddish at times but also philosophical and poetic. His genre is hard to label but I get the feeling he likes it that way.

Although at first you may feel that his speech jumps around a bit without really following a pattern, you soon realise that there is a subtle connection in all of what he says. It all happens effortlessly, while mixing poems, song and comedy.

What really caught my attention was that his show is current. The focus is on pulling together and fighting loneliness especially since Covid. As we bounced from the pandemic to war in a matter of weeks, we never really managed to get over one before being hit by the horrors of conflict and the cost of living crisis. Rob reaches out to the crowd and is comforting in his humanity. As a young person I really relate to this and I saw that many others did too.

His uncompromising sincerity, straight attitude and somewhat awkward presence on stage made for a captivating show. The hour passed quickly and I left in a feel good and appreciative mood.

Review written by Alex Keyse.