Ron Swanson is why everyone’s here – but Ron Swanson’s not what we get. It can feel like peevishness or perversion when a famous entertainer refuses to give fans what they want. But not with Nick Offerman, who has something even more delightful to offer us than his beloved Parks and Recreation alter ego: himself.
Not that he’d express it in those terms: the man is modesty personified, effacing himself almost entirely from the success of the sitcom, and more recently The Last of Us – not to mention his marriage to Will & Grace actor Megan Mullally. In all cases, says Offerman in his folksy drawl, he was but the lucky lottery winner when life handed out its prizes.
Whether it’s sincere or not, that’s a charming pose, and Offerman’s show has rugged charm in spades, from the rocking-chair-on-the-stoop delivery of his stories and pearls of wisdom, to his entertaining acoustic guitar songs about religion, married life and the threat to the acting profession posed by AI.
Call me complacent, but no AI will ever have the comic or performing chops of Offerman. The show isn’t standup; he calls himself a “humorist”. But it’s lovably dry, and droll, and the pleasure he takes in it is infectious. The generous spirit of the man is distilled in a song written for this UK tour, about his dreams of breaking British TV – a crowd-pleasing gift of a number (“if Christian Bale can play Batman, why can’t I be an EastEnder?”) that ends with a killer line about Philip Schofield’s recent travails.
Elsewhere in a show that wears Offerman’s big-heartedness on its sleeve, the homophobic abuse he recently received for playing a gay character prompts a song that sends up macho definitions of masculinity. And – a propos of nothing – there’s a routine disassembling a hilariously duff lyric by the singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. He signs off with a song contrasting himself to Ron Swanson (“I’m the Charlie Brown to his Charlie Bronson”), but the apology it represents is unnecessary: for tonight at least, no one wishes Offerman to be anyone but himself.
Nick Offerman is at Liverpool Empire 29 June, Theatre Royal Glasgow 30 June, then touring.
