Milton Jones Live Universe Tour – Part One: Earth review

Live Universe Tour – Part One: Earth is the debut stand up DVD from the award winning Milton Jones who has earned a reputation as a top comic performer with his quick fire delivery of his often surreal material. Taking to the stage in a wacky shirt and messy hair, Jones proceeds to deliver one liner after one liner to the London crowd.

Jones’ ability to reel off one liner after one liner is commendable and there’s a lot of material crammed in to the 70+ minute run time. However, I found the material extremely hit and miss with few jokes here raising anything more than a mild chuckle.

Aside from posing questions to the audience and replying with, “Your house stinks!” there’s not a great deal of interaction. This joke is repeated a number of times throughout the set. Another area of repetition is when Jones leaves the stage, as if ending the set, and returning to greet the crowd as if they were another crowd from another country. These parts of the set are mildly amusing the first time they’re used, but by the end of the set, when they have been used a number of times, they get a little irritating, to say the least.

I was expecting a lot more than what I got from viewing this DVD. I had heard Jones on Radio 4 a couple of times and remember seeing him on Mock The Week recently and being impressed. Sadly, this was something of a disappointment, I find this type of comedy enjoyable in small doses but when it’s stretched out for over an hour it becomes hard work.

I’ve watched the set twice now as I’ve heard that Jones’ material has a number of levels that reward repeat viewing / listening. I really didn’t get that from this set. I wouldn’t say that there were any aspects of the material that went over my head and I certainly didn’t find the second time watching this set a rewarding experience.

One thing I did notice from the second viewing was the number of blank faces in the crowd. There are a significant percentage of the crowd that appear not to be enjoying what they’re seeing. It would be unfair to say that there weren’t those who did enjoy the show, as there clearly were. Despite bemused faces on a number of crowd members there are a lot there that are clearly fans of Jones and respond favourably to everything he says.

There are similarities between Jones and Tim Vine in terms of style and delivery; Jones is credited as a writer of three episodes of the Vine starring comedy show Not Going Out. I would say that Milton Jones’ humor is something of an acquired taste. I’m sure fans of Jones won’t hesitate to buy this, but I wouldn’t recommend this to someone who’s not familiar with his work, particularly when considering the number of top quality DVD releases from stand ups coming out in the run up to Christmas.

Short of having the luxury of being able to select what scene to watch, there are no extras whatsoever on the disc.

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Milton Jones – Live Universe Tour – Part One: Earth is out now.