In the low-ceilinged room of The Stand Comedy Club, comedy-rap-poetry-music duo The Harry and Chris Show created an environment of laughter and singing, with audience camaraderie and suggestions for pun-filled freestyle segments. With awkward charm and catchy hooks, Harry and Chris sang, rapped, and joked their way into the audiences’ heart, and their genuine friendship and love for their show shone brighter than stage lights.
It is an unusual gift to come across a show that is pure positivity. The news can be dismal, and making fun of it makes it easier to cope with. The Harry and Chris Show never pretended otherwise, mentioning terrorism and fear, but even the song written during the terror attacks in Paris was filled with the fact that life is never as bad as it seems through dry statistics.
Each song sung in Chris’ smooth voice and spoken in Harry’s wry staccato, is humour carefully wrapped around a nugget of wisdom, with a tag on it saying ‘To: You, From: Hopeful Optimism’. From songs about pandas and turning vegetarian, to Armageddon, The Harry and Chris Show puts positivity into them all.
With enough dry humour and hard-hitting reliability to prevent cheesy falseness, I smiled until my cheeks ached and walked out feeling like maybe life wasn’t so bad. “There’s a lot in the world to be angry about, but we’re trying to find a way to be positive in an active way” Harry told me.
The world is full of so many negative, devastating things, that some days it can feel like we’re overflowing with them. But it’s moments like these, in shows like this, that remind us that there is always something to smile about, and always someone to smile with.