Rob Schneider: An Evening of Lies

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Best known for films like Deuce Bigalo: American Gigalo, veteran US comic Rob Schneider is performing stand-up in the UK for the first time.

And you can’t fault his topicality.openingandclosinghis 90-minute set with an appreciation of the late Professor Stephen Hawking, appreciating both his mind and lack of commitment to a relationship – something twice-divorced Schneider relates to – he is, by turns, bluntly funny and crude.

You reap what you sow making goofy, low-brow films with Adam Sandler though, and his final remarks are hampered by drunken idiots braying his movie catchphrases at him.

Still, Schneider’s career has made him a rich and famous man. And it’s grimly compelling to hear of his proximity to plenty of rich, famous men who’ve been ruined by sexual harassment revelations recently.

He pulls few punches in his assessments of the likes of Bill Cosby, Louis CK and Michael Douglas, or indeed, his Home Alone 2 co-star Donald Trump.

But he’s hardly a feminist. His relationship material contains scintilla of observational truth on the battle of the sexes. Yet he paints an increasingly bleak picture of his third marriage that becomes wearing and even depressing after a time. Women, and his Mexican wife in particular, are invariably corrected with “bitch”. And his racial material tends to the broad.

For the most part though, his candour is welcome and Schneider’s own mixed-race heritage affords him a certain licence. Most appealingly, he knows the fickle nature of fame, offering a soberingly funny tale about the hardluck case who once owned his mansion.