Comedy

Yianni: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Line?

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30/08/15

The Stand 2, Edinburgh

This is a show about the nature of comedy: what makes it work and why it can sometimes seem offensive. Yianni Agisilaou is a likeable performer, who approaches the difficult subject of ‘how far is too far – and why?’ with an affability sometimes at odds with the ideas he is exploring. He’s effortlessly charming, and there is a real warmth in the room, as he establishes a clear rapport with the audience. He’s funny too: there are plenty of laughs in this hour-long consideration of what constitutes offensiveness.

If there’s a problem here, it comes from a good place. I enjoy being in this room with this cheery, intelligent comedian, but I think the work would have more impact if it were all a bit less nice. If Yianni were able to bring himself to truly offend – to make the audience gasp in real shock, perhaps – then his deconstruction of human hypocrisy and self-delusion would be far more powerful.

But still, this is a solid set from an experienced performer, who knows how to please a crowd. There are far worse ways we could have spent our last day here at 2015’s fringe.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

Amy Howerska: Sasspot

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29/08/15

Gilded Balloon, Teviot, Edinburgh

Amy Howerska opens the gig with a warning: it’s the end of the festival and everyone’s gone a little bit stir-crazy. She’s probably right: a whole month of gigging in this hot-house of creativity and competition is bound to take its toll. But she, unlike a lot of others, at least looks like she’s maintained a healthy balance – all glowing skin and shiny eyes. She doesn’t look tired or defeated or in dire need of some clean air. She’s ebullient and fresh, and the whole thing starts off well.

The show centres on Howerska’s unusual background. She boasts a familial line of ex-military (SAS?) men, and grew up in a sky-diving drop-zone run by her father when he left the services. It’s wonderfully unusual; she doesn’t have to work too hard to pique our interest. There are tales of near-death in the Brecon Beacons, and a large cast of aunties and other relatives are vividly brought to life. She’s sparky and likeable, and the audience is on her side.

It’s a shame, then, that she seems to lose confidence part way through the set. There are only twenty or so people in the audience, and so of course our laughter is more muted than it would be in a larger crowd. Maybe we don’t respond as she expects at a key moment? It’s hard to tell. But she loses focus, leaves the stage to switch on a fan, and then starts commenting that we’re not laughing at particular lines. She seems to panic a little, derailing her momentum.

Luckily, this doesn’t last too long, and Howerska soon regains her stride, explaining with gusto why funerals are better than weddings, and why hen parties are hell on earth. She’s funny, smart and different – and definitely one to watch.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Garrett Millerick: A Selection of Things I’ve Said to Taxi Drivers

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29/08/15

Underbelly, Med Quad, Edinburgh

It’s the last few days of the Fringe and many acts are understandably beginning to feel a little bit jaded, but clearly, the affliction has completely bypassed Garrett Millerick. He stalks out onto the stage and launches himself headlong into a vitriolic set which is fuelled mostly by anger. Millerick is a grumpy sort. He seems to have a beef with just about everything and everyone, from the people who leave one star reviews on Amazon (for batteries!) to the supermarkets who have the cheek to charge five pence for a plastic bag. He even offers a routine about why Page Three is the least offensive thing in The Sun; you don’t necessarily agree with what he says, but you have to applaud the skill with which he puts his arguments together.

He is a confident performer, his voice ranging from a sly, conspiratorial hush to a ranting bellow and he soon has the early evening audience in the palm of his hand, eliciting plenty of well-earned laughter and let’s face it, that’s the name of the game here. He even apologises for not actually mentioning taxi drivers in the set and tells us about a guy who came up to him after a show and complained that the poster promised something that wasn’t delivered. ‘Are you a taxi driver?’ Millerick asked him. ‘No,’ replied the guy. ‘But I’m interested in taxis.’

Oh boy…

We have no complaints about this assured set, which delivers on so many levels –  it’s frank, visceral and occasionally controversial – but I’m not sure whether to tweet him a link to this review. After all, another of his pet hates is people who voice their opinions. What do you think? Should I?

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Wonderful World of Lieven Scheire

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29/08/15

Gilded Balloon, Teviot, Edinburgh

Lieven Scheire strolls onto the stage of the Wee Room and announces that he’s about to do something that to me, seems an impossibility: he’s going to make science interesting; more specifically, the subject  of special relativity. It’s to his credit that he manages to do exactly that, whilst making a room full of punters laugh out loud into the bargain.

Scheire is Belgian. He has the puppyish demeanour of everyone’s favourite primary school teacher and is able to convey quite complex information with effortless simplicity. As somebody who suffers from dyscalculia, I’m probably a challenge for him, but he softens the blow by allowing me to pilot a rocket ship. OK, it’s an imaginary rocket ship, measuring 12 meters in length, but Scheire explains how it can be momentarily parked in only 10 meters of space and I don’t end up with a brain ache. In a Fringe that seems to be dominated by nerdy young comics explaining why they don’t fit in to the generally accepted term of what constitutes a ‘lad,’ Scheire is actually a genuine nerd, who revels in being exactly what he is. This is one of the most original comedy shows we’ve seen this year, part stand up, part lecture. With just a couple of days to go before it’s all over, it may already be too late to recommend him, but he’s certainly a name to look out for in the future.

Just not one that’s easy to pronounce.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Rhys Nicholson: Forward

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27/08/15

Underbelly, George Square, Edinburgh

In what can only be described as an oblong black box on Underbelly, Rhys Nicholson introduces a welcome splash of colour. With his red hair, pale skin and flamboyant clothing, he’s keen to let us know about his unconventional life in all its endless variety. He hails from Newcastle, Australia (strangely enough the same home town as Sarah Kendall, another Aussie comedian doing well at this year’s Fringe) and at twenty five, his main preoccupations are sex, Tony Abbott and making collages. He’s quick to let us know that tonight, the conversation will be a decidedly adult one, or as he likes to call it ‘climbing aboard the filth train.’

He has a nice line in pithy, self-deprecating remarks and quickly has the audience on his side, milking the laughs skilfully. He’s consistently funny throughout, even if his material is more entertaining than challenging and he maintains a lively rapport with his punters. There’s no particular standout routine here, though his recollections of being ‘politely mugged’ raise the night’s biggest laughs. As the Fringe noses into its last few days, this show is a good bet for early evening laughs, before you descend into the madness of booze, music and fireworks.

Oh yes. He has a sideline in making novelty bow ties and sausage dog brooches, which he offers for sale after the event.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Missing Hancocks

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27/08/15

Assembly Rooms Music Hall, George Street, Edinburgh

There was no way I was going to miss this little treat. As a Hancock fan from way back, this was right up my street – four episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour, lost from the archives and now lovingly recreated for the Edinburgh Festival, two shows each featuring two episodes. OK, so I only had time to slot in Show A, (The Winter Holiday and New Year Resolutions) but boy am I glad I did. It only reaffirms for me that Hancock teamed with Galton and Simpson was the very definition of comedy gold.

The shows are recreated exactly as they would have been on the BBC in the 1950s. The actors stand around a couple of mics with their scripts and they read them out, complete with sound effects and musical interludes. Kevin MacNally doesn’t so much play Hancock as inhabit the very bones of him. It’s all there; the lugubrious expressions, the perfect timing and that world-weary voice. Close your eyes and you’re right back there in your parents’ living room, listening to the original shows. Likewise, Robin Sebastian’s embodiment of Kenneth Williams is absolutely spot on, as he flounces on and steals the show, as he always did, right from under Hancock’s nose.

I won’t pretend that this is for everyone. There are plenty of people who simply don’t ‘get’ Hancock, who can’t see anything remotely funny in his work and for them, this would doubtless be akin to some kind of aural torture. But the packed seats of the Assembly Music Hall testify to the fact that there’s a lot of fans out there who are delighted to have the opportunity to enjoy these vintage episodes once again. Priceless.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

It Started With Jason Donovan

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26/08/15

New Town Theatre, George Street, Edinburgh

It started with Jason Donovan is an odd little show – amusing, sweet, ridiculous and fun. It’s essentially a monologue, interspersed with dance and song, where ‘shaker, movement-maker’ Sarah Blanc reveals the story of her troubled love life.

The premise is this: an early crush on Jason Donovan meant that Blanc formed an unrealistic view of what to expect from relationships, based on JD’s cheesy song lyrics and the “perfect” Scott-Charlene marriage.

Blanc presents this as a self-help lecture, illustrated with tales from her own dating disasters, all charmingly and self-deprecatingly told.

She’s an engaging performer, and the audience tonight is most definitely on her side, willingly participating in a range of scenes. It’s a little ramshackle, but Blanc works this to her advantage, and the show certainly succeeds in making us laugh.

OK, so there’s not a lot of substance here. Most of the humour comes from deliberately dodgy dancing (though there’s clearly a ‘proper’ dancer behind those funny moves) and over- frequent costume changes; it’s a bit like a Cosmo article: ‘Seven Ways to Keep Your Man.’ It’s fluffy, whimsical stuff – but, you know what, Kylie? I liked it.

3.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Sophie Pelham: Country Files

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25/08/15

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

Down the stairs in the cellar of the Pleasance Courtyard, Ms Vanessa Bluwer is waiting to greet you with a glass of cheap sherry and a miniature sausage roll. It’s a wonderfully informal start to this affectionate slice of character comedy. Ms Bluwer is, of course, just one of several people played by Sophie Pelham, all of them from rural Wiltshire and all doubtless based on observation of real people – or at least, so it seems. The characters include retired model-turned-Mum, Sulky Waterboat, the lecherous Lord Ponsonby and a pony-mad eight year old girl addicted to biscuits. There’s even a couple of animal characters thrown in for good measure, a relocated urban fox and a rapping badger (yes, really!)

There’s a meagre crowd for this event, which is a great shame because this charmingly ramshackle show is all based around Pelham’s hilarious exchanges with the audience and in the intimate confines of the cellar, this would have worked a whole lot better if there’d been more people for her to talk to. Her characters are nicely drawn and there are some genuinely funny lines in there, but it’s by no means perfect. She needs to find a way to streamline the proceedings and give us something more to do during her many costume changes, but overall there’s loads of potential here and I rather enjoyed the performance (even the bit where Ms Bluwer chose me as an assistant with whom to demonstrate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!)

If you’re looking for something quirky and eccentric, this could be just the thing. And if you’ve a taste for sherry and sausage rolls… this line is made for you!

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Tom Neenan: The Andromeda Paradox

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24/08/15

Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh

Professor Bernard Andromeda has devoted his life to researching strange phenomena – so when a mysterious prehistoric artefact is discovered in a disused London tube station, his curiosity is immediately aroused – especially when said artefact is inscribed with his name. He sets about trying to discover its origins and finds himself embroiled in a mystery that will challenge his scientific beliefs to the core, one that leads to the realisation that alien forces are at work. Soon much of the population of London has been turned into hordes of zombies all chanting his name and he is the only man who can avert disaster…

Tom Neenan has written a wonderfully affectionate parody of Nigel Kneale’s landmark sci-fi tale, The Quatermass Experiment, in which he plays all the characters – from a strange German professor who has taken his experiments with flowers a bit too far, to Andromeda’s adoring female assistant who is prepared to use her feminine charms to help him solve the mystery. Neenan is an expert story teller and he milks the comic potential of the 50s setting with great skill, aided and abetted by a script that is laugh-out-loud funny – the scene where one of Neenan’s hands transforms into an adorable alien creature… ‘no bigger than my hand,’ is a particular delight. There’s wonderful stagecraft here too. A whole range of locations are evoked simply by the positioning of a table and chair and Neenan’s sweet posh-boy persona is exploited to the hilt.

The performance is peppered with plenty of in-jokes but you don’t need to be familiar with the original material in order to enjoy this deliciously silly slice of nonsense, which is designed to appeal to people of all ages. Fabulous stuff, I urge you to catch it.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Fully Committed

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24/08/15

Underbelly Potterrow (Venue 358)

We all know Marcus Brigstocke as a stand up comedian and radio show host, but can he act? On the strength of Fully Committed, the answer is a resounding yes. This sprightly one-hander tells the story of Sam Peliczowski, an affable out of work actor who, for the moment at least, has the more mundane task of running the reservation phone lines at Manhattan’s most exclusive restaurant. We join him at the beginning of an absolute day from hell, when his co-worker has failed to turn up and Sam is left to run the show single-handed. But didn’t I say that this was a one-hander? Well, yes, because the trick here is that Brigstocke voices all the characters that Sam speaks to on the phone lines (40 of them in total) supplying their respective accents and mannerisms into the bargain. It’s a monumental undertaking and the script must have been a nightmare to memorise, but Brigstocke handles it effortlessly, giving us amongst others, a foul mouthed Bronx chef, an anxious female socialite and his own father. Most of the characters are American and the wonder is that the audience never struggles to know which character is speaking at any given point.

For the first few minutes, I wasn’t sure the play was going to work, but once into his stride, Brigstocke manages to convey the madness and anxiety of the situation spelled out in Becky Mode’s frothy script, snapping from character to character at lightning speed and as the demands on Sam become ever more frenetic, you can’t help feeling for him.

This is classy stuff and Brigstocke seizes the opportunity to extend his range. Catch it before it’s gone.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney