It is not every night that one sees a big star like Hugh Grant sitting in the tiny Soho Theatre. But the actor has a particular interest in Richard Peppiatt’s One Rogue Reporter, which delves into the dirty side of tabloid tactics in the light of the phone hacking scandal and Leveson Inquiry into press standards. Grant even featured in the monologue, receiving, the youthful performer suggested, more mentions than he has ever had in a comedy show.
Peppiatt was previously a Daily Star journalist, but after dressing in a Burqa, interviewing Aleksandr the Meerkat and, the final indignity, having to be snapped in a woman's swimsuit, he resigned. Stand-up is a move towards respectability by comparison. He is no Michael McIntyre, but there was plenty of satirical wit as he wondered what the Mail Online’s first piece of addictive sidebar gossip was, imagining a biblical edition asking “Are you sure you are a Virgin, Mary?”
He came into his own, however, in video footage where he fearlessly invaded various media figures’ privacy to explore the ethics of invasion of privacy. He failed to doorstep Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, but his delicious laying bare of former News of the World reporter Neville Thurlbeck and brilliant scuppering of ex-Sun supremo Kelvin MacKenzie justified the ticket price.
The presence of Leveson witnesses Hugh Grant and ex-motorsport boss Max Mosley in the audience lent the evening gravitas, but the comical clips made One Rogue Reporter feel more like an Ali G prank than a Panorama exposé. It was only in Peppiatt’s rousing finale, listing endless red top apologies, that a consistently serious side emerged. But if Peppiatt wants to be a comedian maybe he is on the right track playing this sorry saga largely for laughs.
Also November 27 & 28 (020 7478 0100, sohotheatre.com)
