A Whole Lifetime with Jamie Demetriou

Things need to be tighter, but there are some decent laughs. Demetriou has a wayward, experimental comic energy still very much in the making.

There’s enough here for any Stath fan to love, and anyone unfamiliar with Demetriou to go looking for more afterward. There are times like these, however, where I might wish sketch comedy collections had chapter dividers so you could SKIP more easily past the less effective scenes.

A Whole Lifetime is an enjoyable snack for Demetriou fans but one that leaves you with the feeling of “yes, and what now?” and the suspicion that, if only for a short moment, another writer needs to take hold of Demetriou’s natural pathos and unforced mania, and force him into a different shape.

The comic material is decidedly British, with a Netflix sheen: silly, but lacking the sharpness of Stath or his live sketch characters. It’s that attempt to straddle both worlds that leaves Demetriou’s comedy feeling surprisingly watered down.