I’m Not Being Funny review – there’s laughter through tears in emotional dark comedy

Bush theatre, LondonMarried aspiring standups confront on stage what they’re concealing in real life, in Piers Black’s compelling two-hander Standup is performance in extremis, self-projection in the raw – and has long appealed to dramatists interested in the faces we present to and conceal from one another. That seems to be the territory of I’m Not Being Funny, too, as we meet two young parents prepping in their living room for a forthcoming open mic night. Peter wants to tell corny jokes; Billie wants to tell stories about her – well, their lives. An interrogation looms into the uses and abuses of onstage humour, but that is not, in the end, what we get. I’m not convinced that Piers Black’s play quite marries how it starts with what it becomes. There is something off about the pair practising comedy together. Are they planning solo slots – the classic “tight five”, as Peter refers to it? (He frets he only has a “loose two”.) Or are they workshopping a double act? That question feels more pertinent when, after a few flashbacks hinting at a dramatic backstory, the play swerves into more traumatic territory. Under Bryony Shanahan’s sensitive direction, and