Christian Reilly at Liverpool’s famous Hot Water Comedy Club

Reilly entered the stage screaming for himself, imitating a crowd cheer as the audience were initially silent – “I’m from Nottingham, so you have a right to be excited”, the sarcasm dripping from his voice, as the audience let out a chuckle, “My names Christian but I don’t want people from other cultures to be excluded so I’m using a Jewish microphone!”.

Reilly’s odd comedic style includes a guitar and a cowboy outfit – an unusual appearance for the act who was headlining the gig on Saturday. The audience seemed slightly perplexed at this unusual style, in comparison to the other comedians of the night in their jeans and t-shirts. Yet, despite this and his late arrival, his satirical jokes and witty sense of humour shone through his entire performance – opening with a dig at Coldplay’s ‘same riff in every song’ joke, winning over the audience from the get-go.

Liverpool’s iconic Hot Water Comedy Club hosted five comedians on Saturday night, ending with Christian Reilly. Up until this date Reilly’s career as former part of the Perrier award-winning show Otis Lee Crenshaw and the Black Liars, had taken him around the world multiple times.

Since then, he has gone solo, making a name for himself in comedy clubs around the country – headlining the majority of them despite being more unknown than most headliners.

Reilly isn’t shy in revealing chunks of his personal life for comedic gain – typical of his usual performance style, with the second joke in the show poking fun at his previous failed relationships, and recent bad break-up – however, lightening the mood through the C and D chords on his guitar, portraying a typical ‘sad song’.

Although, unlike most of the comedic line-up that night, Reilly had little interaction with the audience which was unusual for most acts at the comedy club, with their audiences eager for interaction with the comedians. However, all Reilly did was address one woman at the back who couldn’t stop laughing – “Yeah it wasn’t that funny!”.

Reilly addressed some political issues throughout his set, with a song about the ‘difficulty’ of being Donald Trump ‘Trumpin 9 to 5’, where Reilly sang about Trumps controversial views on race, finances, and global political and social issues.

The climax of Reilly’s set was the mockery of popular artists, and his divine story-telling ability. His mocking of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Galway Girl’ lit up the clearly alternative audience – the story of meeting an Irish girl who turned out to be Ed Sheeran ended the show on a side-splitting note.

Christian Reilly’s use of putting together the nations love for music and comedy – created a solid structure for his entire show.

Reilly is worth seeing if you haven’t already, his set is always similar, addressing popular figures and using them for comedic gain, however, every show he tries to make personal for the audience, adding a new song, or integrating an audience member into his show – making for a unique performance every time.