Some people still don’t know who they are voting for on May 7th and I am bemused by this. I cannot escape the election (not that I have tried, I am unashamedly addicted to the coverage); it is all over the television, Twitter, any news website you care to mention and steadily pervades through the chatter in the air. Yet some who I have spoken to say they are ‘waiting for something to happen’ to make up their mind. It is almost as if they hope to awaken to a news story one day reading “Candidate punches panda at London zoo” so they can confidently cross them off their ‘Potentials’ list. Or, in UKIP’s case, “Farage sends Panda back to China for claiming free zoo room and board for 14 years”.

However, if you are one of those who are yet to make up your mind, you would do well to chat with Andy Zaltzman aka Satirist for Hire. Zaltzman is a co-host of the satirical podcast The Bugle alongside Daily Show and Community regular John Oliver and is about to take up a monthly residency at the Soho Theatre from 11^th May. His show allows audience members to email him beforehand, with the issues important to them, and then hear them satirised by a group of professional comedians. Joining Zaltzman at the show I attended were BBC4 writer/presenter and socialist comedian Mark Steel, stand-up Nish Kumar and host of political comedy club Lolitics Chris Coltrane.

The format was both unique and engaging as Zaltzman also offered the opportunity for audience members to suggest items they’d like to see satirised and made sure to work each and every one of them into his set. It is a breed of comedy that I haven’t seen very often, a form of largely improvised stand-up,  and when carried out so seamlessly it works rather well. Audience requests ranged from everything to Jeremy Clarkson to mental health wristbands to the country of Holland all of which Zaltzman dealt with effortlessly and looked like he was having a great time doing so.  He particularly enjoyed berating one girl in the front row who expressed how boring she found cricket ('It's supposed to be boring! That's the point!' chipped in Steel.) ‘Do you like novels?’ Zaltzman asked the girl. ‘Sure,’ she nodded. Zaltzman looked triumphant and iterated that cricket was vastly superior. If you really wanted to,  he explained, you could flip to the end of a novel and find out the ending. With cricket, you’re in genuine suspense to the very end. She and the audience remained unconvinced.

The main crux of the evening, however, centred largely on the issues (and candidates) the country faces in the run-up to the General Election. Mark Steel pretty much nailed it when he spoke of his frustration over the pervading selfishness which increasingly permeates through society, where people are predominantly concerned with ‘what’s in it for me’.  He suggested we would head towards an environment where people cry out such objections as ‘Why am I paying for a fire-service? I’m not on fire’ and ‘Why does that blind person need a guide dog? I can’t climb trees and no-one buys me a gibbon!’. He also painted a picture where people would insist on street lights being turned off, instead, each carrying individual torches to make sure they only illuminated the specific patch of land that they personally needed. Sure, it’s satire. But read some of the party manifestos and they’re not suggesting something a million miles away from this.

Make sure if you go to the effort of writing in with a topic for satire that you do actually turn up for the show. Chris Coltrane was given the topic of Liberal MP candidate Maajid Nawaz by someone who lived in his constituency. The requestor asked that they satirise the fact that after footage had been posted of Nawaz at a strip club, he had begun receiving death threats from Isis. A headline where the satirical analysis almost writes itself. Even so, Coltrane had done pages of research on this, only to look crestfallen when he discovered that the man who had written in with this suggestion had not turned up. ‘I’m going to scrap half of this,’ he said, brandishing his notes, ‘as it was pretty much only relevant to him.'  When asked by an audience member to satirise comments Right Said Fred had recently come out with about the Election, Coltrane was understandably more baffled about why on earth, in 2015,  Right Said Fred might be a relevant source of opinion. Nish Kumar also dealt admirably with the topic of the Bristolian UKIP porn star candidate, questioning his moniker of Jonny Rockhard and the promises that lie within.

Zaltzman was a gracious host, giving his guests plenty of stage time whilst intermittently referring back to the questions that audience members had posed. The majority of questions were centred around current affairs but one viewer had rather puzzlingly asked Zaltzman to satirise why strangers were forever coming up to him and asking him about ciabatta. ‘I would guess that you’re a spy and you’ve forgotten your activation code,’ Zaltzman quipped. Coltrane and Kumar were equally intrigued by one man who implied that the results of the football would have a bearing on which party he voted for but refused to elaborate on why, despite their persistence.

A varied, educational and highly enjoyable evening and one to which I would unhesitatingly return. If you are around in London on Election Day (May 7), do pop along to his final 'Election Special' show at the Udderbelly with guests including Josie Long and Tiernan Douieb. After this, Zaltzman will perform his show monthly at the Soho Theatre. Tickets for all shows are available here.