Reviews Archive
The Reviews Archive from 1997.
Interviews
Interviews with stand-up stars.
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Being Johnny Vegas, Gilded Balloon, EdinburghJOHNNY VEGAS is a phenomenon.
The fat lad from Lancashire does not such perform as gush hilarious material like a comedy fire hydrant.
And his fans love him for it.
The queue for his show stretched halfway down Cowgate even though everyone in it already had a ticket.
And when the doors opened, there was a rush by punters to sit at the front where it was most likely they would be picked on.
This would have been extraordinary enough in itself, even not taking into account the amazing ferocity of his banter with the audience.
When you are out drinking with Johnny Vegas, you could not imagine more pleasant company. But put him on stage and give him a microphone and it's like firing an Exocet missile.
Within a couple of minutes of starting, Vegas had back-boilered his scripted materal to round hilariously on a woman with a Bagpuss bag.
Next a man who had bought his T-shirt on the internet has his relationship ruthlessly dissected.
Then a bloke in the front row, whose party trick was shaking a defiant fist in the air, got Johnnied.
Vegas got him on stage for an arm-wrestling contest for the prize of a pint of Guinness.
Despite the man's bulging biceps and evident determination, the sheer bulk of the topless slob won the day.
Victorious Vegas jumped up and down and rubbed Guinness into his blubbery chest during a victory jig.
In between all this audience participation, Vegas did roll out some shockingly-memorable material: being raped by Welsh farmers while disguised as a sheep (as one does) and proving to be hermaphrodite and having and abandoning his baby.
Bizarrely, the show ended with Vegas singing an unaccompanied medley of Wham! and solo George Michael hits, until the entire audience congoed out of the room.
Comedy doesn't get much better.
STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Rich Hall and Dave Fulton, the Terry Dullum Appeal, Assembly Rooms, EdinburghNORTH AMERICA'S finest came and conquered.
Perrier Award winner Rich Hall, Dave Fulton (pictured) and guest Mike Wilmot - a Canadian - put on a world-beating display of the comedy craft.
Under the guise of raising cash for a young boy with Turette's Syndrome and a lobster claw instead of a hand (don't ask!), Hall and Fulton started with a bit of a double act, before inviting on the lad's dad.
Mr Dullum - Wilmot - delivered a thankyou speech to those helping his stricken son, ranging from calling them 'cocksuckers' to commenting on how amusing he found Turette's Syndrome to informing the audience about his work in a beer-bottling factory. It was brilliantly crass.
Then Fulton did 20 minutes of blistering, breakneck-speed standup, and Hall reappeared in a wrestling mask as the WWF's Rainmaker, young Terry's hero.
His ranting was a wondrous send-up of the World Wrestling Federation and all its hype.
Later, there was a cameo appearance by Boothby Graffoe, not really doing a Scottish accent, and a neat musical finish.
The packed crowd was ecstatic having seen a superlative show.
Simply sublime! STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Small and Large Show, Tron, Edinburgh
SMALL AND LARGE SHOW was small on audience and large on silent spells of non-laughter which sadly was what it deserved.
Attempting to jump on the multi-media bandwagon of award-winning and nominated shows from last year's Fringe, the Small and Large storyline was a half-arsed attempt to find 70s TV favourites Sid Little and Eddie Large.
Pre-recorded clips show the search going on in Barcelona and South Africa.
The other 50 or so minutes sandwiched around them are smatterings of Rick Smallwood's and Nathan Cassidy's normal stand-up routines - but it is not enough to save this sinking ship.
Cassidy remarked that on August 27 he will be burning down the Tron.
I suspected he wished he could raze it down then and there to save himself the embarrassment of performing this atrocius show every night.
It begged the question: when was the time that this idea seemed a good one?
Hmm, itchy chin...
The original price of this show was seven pounds.
On passing the Tron four days later, I noticed the price had dropped to two.
No surprise there then.
STAR RATING (out of five): ZERO
Peter Merrett
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
The Giant Pineapple Boys Present Hollywoodn't, Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh
AT LAST! A show where the title actually reflects the content.
If you are a film buff, particularly on American blockbusters, but also think sometimes the whole Hollywood industry needs to be brought down a peg, you will enjoy this extravaganza immensely.
And if the idea of a gay porn movie directed by Woody Allen and Tom Cruise and starring Sly, Arnie, De Niro, Pacino and Connery sounds funny, seeing the off-set preparation was hilarious - as was the bathrobe scene.
Also slotted in was a premiere for Pineapple Boy's new Film, Live Cinema, which gives them additional opportunity to parody old favouritse such as Star Wars, the Bond movies, Armagedon and Grease.
These three talented performers and writers are sure to go far. The late night audience at the Gilded loved it.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****
Peter Merrett
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Standup Show, Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh
AS WELL as having the most orange publicity material at the Fringe, this show also had the roughest ride.
On the night I visited, the audience really did not take to the acts.
Sure, they quite enjoyed old trouper Brian Damage's oldie worldy comedy routine. It still makes me laugh, even though I've heard him tell those gags hundreds of times.
But the crowd did not take to good-looking Texan Randy Wilson.
At its best, Randy's act is a triumph of presentation over content. He looks a million dollars on stage and delivers his lines with unerring confidence.
But it is gentle and ultra-soft observational comedy that a crowd can easily choose NOT to laugh at.
I am also puzzled about how the TV theme tunes that he plays on his trumpet fit into the equation.
He might do better to link these musical interludes to the main flow of his comedy.
All the same, he kept his nerve and left the stage with his dignity intact, despite having played to a silent room.
Next on Phil Zimmerman is one of my favourite performers.
Unfortunately, he was a bag of nerves on this occasion and his pigeon-obsessed act was all over the place.
It was painful to see him die totally, although I dare say it was a character-building experience for him.
Headliner Barrie Hall is an excellent stand-up.
He has excellent material and a tremendous stage presence.
Unfortunately, the evening had so hit the rocks that Hall was not able to give it the kiss of life.
It was a shame because I would have liked to have seen all these striving comics enjoying success.
My final memory of the gig was seeing a pretty girl at the back flashing her tits at another woman as I was departing.
Crowds don't come much stranger.
STAR RATING (out of five): ***
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Sam and Cy, Pleasance, Edinburgh
SAM AND CY have come on in leaps and bounds during the year.
Rather than appearing to have just a series of sketches, everything now gels and their show has a great cohesion.
The quality of their character comedy is excellent - whether playing sex-mad evangelists, an elderly couple or a psychotic and his counsellor.
It is beautifully crafted and suberbly performed show which brought tears of laughter to most of the audience.
The fact that two men at the back kept talking loudly and had to be asked to leave by the venue staff was strange.
But Sam and Cy got some good laughs out of their exit, overcoming that situation with ease.
They are at their best when they ad-lib. The spur-of-the-moment change roles (and accents) in the psychiatrist/patient sketch was inspired.
It was one of many high points of a show that did Sam and Cy great credit.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****and a half
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Aaaaaah Dominic Frisby, Pleasance, EdinburghKING OF COOL Dominic Frisby is one of the best character comedians in the business.
His range is fantastic - from the now-retired Upper Class Rapper to Morris the Morris Dancer to Ludwig the Bavarian.
This show contained a fair chunk of material from last year's but was a far better production.
The live character comedy was interspersed with pre-recorded clips shown on a large television.
There was plenty to laugh at.
His rendition of a posh playboy is outstandingly funny and the morris dancer was also brilliant.
The audience interaction with Ludwig was beautifully done - allowing the warmth of Frisby's personality to shine through.
The cueing gremlin with the video clips was irksome as was the rather overdone plugging of the Japanese electronics corporate giant that had lent him the television set.
But these are minor grumbles about a show that is a first-rate showcase for Frisby's versatile and profound comedy talent.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****and a half
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
The Devil's Drop: Kevin Hayes, The Stand, EdinburghKEVIN HAYES has a wonderful way of looking at life.
Rather than telling gags about dogs and cats or relationships, he researches a complicated topic and skilfully writes material about it.
A couple of years back, his Fringe show, The History of Ireland, was a great triumph, making a name for Hayes at the Festival.
The follow-up, his A to Z of religion, was not quite as sharp. But now Hayes is back - with a show about the history of alcohol that proved as entertaining as it was informative.
The UK-based Irish comic started by explaining he was looking at drink, rather than drinking, although as it turned out a great deal of the humour stemmed from the latter.
Hayes had dug up some wonderful stories about how booze was quaffed through the ages.
The smallish audience was falling about at the tale of the man who drank five bottles of strong port a day - and still lived to be 37.
And the punters loved the one about the upper classes, in one historical account, routinely drinking so heavily that within an hour everyone at a party had sunk unconscious beneath the table - whereupon a male servant went round loosening the guests' cravates to stop them from suffocating.
Hayes has a very sharp sense of comic timing and is highly accomplished at ad libs.
But he did not look entirely comfortable in the venue - a hot upstairs room next to a ladies' hair salon.
He kept rushing for fear of running over his time, which was a shame as the high quality of his material deserved better.
All the same, it was an excellent piece of work that left you wanting more.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Oram and Meeton, Pleasance, Edinburgh
THE SURREAL world of Oram and Meeton swings from the hilarious to the baffling - a journey of twists, laughs and dead ends.
The boys are highly original and extremely funny at times.
But, inevitably, what they do on stage is a bit hit and miss.
I loved the A Team-obsessed friends - West Country soulmates who became fixated with the German-dubbed edition of the cult American action show, contributing to the sudden and violent death of one of them.
But all the monkey material was perplexing, while the holiday in Swanage concept was funny, especially the holiday romance with a devil-possessed blackbird.
A weird but enjoyable trip to the surreal Purbecks.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Priorite a Gauche, Pleasance Dome, EdinburghOOO, LA, LA! C'est un formidable sho' de deux of ze worst - pardon, 'baddest' - young performers at ze festival.
Ze artistes formerly known as Ben and Arn are tres bien at ripping la piste out of ze French and ze British dans la maison.
I for one would love to see them on la bill double avec Al Murray's Le Pub Landlord. It would be a wonderfully incongruous spectacle.
Priorite a Gauche are supposedly French pop stars - almost an oxymoron.
As such, they end up teaching French to children at Butlin's, to hilarious effect, sleeping rough and going to a kicking bar for a good kicking.
The standard of wordplay is first-class, their rapping sharp and the rock-opera finale simply superb.
They bring in the audience very well and ab-lib with wit and alacrity.
Other than the observation that Ben loses his French accent when he sings, I couldn't fault this show.
Un arc de triumph? Un piss de excellence? Je crois que oui, mon sewer!
STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
The Big and Daft Christmas Show, Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh IT'S YULETIDE in Big and Daft Land - and the natives are restive.
Simpleton Rob is hoping Father Christmas will bring him a real dinosaur, bullyboy Ian is trying to convince Rob that Santa does not exist and Jon is hoping peace will break out by Christmas Day.
Resolution comes in the form of a surprise visit from the big fella himself - Father Christmas, who turns out to be profoundly evil and kidnaps the three brothers.
As the plot unfolds, the show gets funnier and funnier.
You are sucked into Big and Daft's surreal world where anything can happen and be totally misunderstood by Rob.
It is fantastically good comedy - these boys can act, sing, do puppetry and are bloody funny.
Ian Boldsworth's script is great but they allow themselves to stray from it with sparky ad-libs.
This is Big and Daft's best show yet; more fully plotted than previous offerings and with the extra attraction of two great cameo parts.
Andre Vincent was a revelation as Evil Father Christmas, a role originally earmarked for Johnny Vegas.
Vincent was hamming it up for Britain, first playing Santa as a posh Englishman, then as a Welshman and finally coming out as Camp Father Christmas.
Adam Bloom was also good, perfectly typecast as a neurotic elf.
Big and Daft are like a Goodies for the 21st Century and I am surprised no one has seen the TV potential in what they do.
Perhaps this wonderful show will change all that.
STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Danny Bhoy, Pleasance, EdinburghDANNY BHOY has a way of putting his audience entirely at ease from the second he takes to the stage.
Maybe, it's his winning smile that does it. Maybe, his pleasantly-gentle Edinburgh accent. Or, maybe, the way he stops for latecomers to find their seats.
Whatever, his stage confidence is supreme and, as a result, there's never an instant that his audience doubts him.
His material is far from radical: drinking and religion, travelling on public transport, different uses of words in different countries.
Thousands of comedians have explored the same avenues, which in a sense is a double-edged sword.
Bhoy knows people can find these subjects funny but it is all the more difficult to say something interesting about them.
He succeeds because he is a supreme comedy writer, churning out material many stand-ups would kill for.
Coupled with his immense stage charisma - which makes you want to laugh at him - and an excellent delivery, he is an impressive talent.
Where will he go from here?
Television acting would seem the most likely option.
Danny Bhoy is just as talented and more handsome than Alan Davies, and look what happened to him.
STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Damage and De Lacy, Holyrood Tavern, Edinburgh BRIAN DAMAGE is a legend on the London comedy circuit.
The old pub rocker has a cracking deadpan musical act - and a kind word for everyone who plays his eccentric club, Pear-shaped in Fitzrovia, allegedly the 'second worst comedy club in London'.
For years, he was single and happy in his misery.
Then at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, something extraordinary happened: he fell in love.
The object of his affections was an Australian performer calling herself Vicky De Lacy.
And soon they were like teenagers in love, wetter than the Firth of Forth and married within months.
You see, Brian is at heart a total romantic.
And so it is not a total surprise that he is back at the Fringe - doing a double-act with his wife.
Damage and De Lacy are a weird mix on stage.
Brian does his usual deadpan gag routine, with some filthy songs thrown in.
Vicky plays a character - a brainless tart called Krysstal Klear, in uncomfortably high heels, low-cut top, leather mini-skirt and tacky jewellery.
Her performance skills are clearly not as well-honed as Damage's - but somehow she gets away with it.
On the night in question, the audience was small - just four people and myself from the start of the show.
But like the old trouper he is, Damage did not seem bothered, putting a huge amount of energy into his performance.
De Lacy - in character, I assumed - sat on the sidelines reading a women's magazine when she was not on stage pretending to be confused.
I had intended to skip out early to review a show at the Gilded Balloon but there was something enthralling about this shambolic act that kept me there till the end.
Even their guest comedian, local boy Lee Ness (the so-called Gay Bernard Manning), was a shocker.
Within two minutes of going on stage, the overweight campster had tried to pick up the two men in the audience - and called their girlfriends 'whores' and 'slappers'. Charming!
Then Damage came on in a floral dress which, strangely, rather suited him.
With his wife (also in a dress), they performed the Two Biddies - possibly the funniest part of the show - and plugged their CD, which they claim contains mainly clean songs.
De Lacy then did some stand-up, which was moderately-well received, as Damage went off to change into Elvis for the finale.
All things considered, this show was great fun and a refreshing break from the tiresome professionism of the Fringe 2001.
It was fringe of the fringe of the Fringe - the sort of entertainment you might expect in the backroom of a boozer off the Mile End Road in London's East End.
Full marks to them for chancing their arm with it in Edinburgh.
STAR RATING (out of five): ***
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Big Value Comedy (Late Show), Cafe Royal Fringe Theatre, Edinburgh THIS SHOW is just what it claims - big value.
Twice a night, it offers four comics and a joke contest - for the very reasonable price of £6.50.
There are also two intervals and some air-conditioning, which for a two-hour show in August is pretty important. (Take note, Gilded Balloon!)
But what of the quality of the comics in the late show?
Alfie Joey is one of the best comperes in the business.
The former trainee priest has a lovely nature which comes across in his work. Alfie is affable and funny. His natural sense of humour could melt the hardest of hearts.
James Dowdeswell is a fabulous impressionist, hitting the funny bone with his regional accents and wacky voices.
Former teacher Natalie Haynes (pictured) was very funny and edgy, with near-the-knuckle material about deaf rapists and seducing her pupils.
Natalie was as scary as she was sexy. I couldn't decide if she was really mad or just faking it.
I felt like asking her during the interval but my courage deserted me.
Headliner Howard Read was outstanding, with clever, good songs and an unforgettable, weird persona.
It was excellent, well-run cabaret - and, perhaps, also a wake-up call for some of the bigger venues.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
The World of Spencer Brown, Pleasance, EdinburghSPENCER BROWN is a besuited whirlwind of a man - an office worker gone insane, gushing inanities as if his life depended on it.
On this night, his audience of around a dozen people - most of them non-English speakers from Taiwan - was not likely to make the rollercoaster ride through his world a comfortable one for Spencer.
Manfully, Brown persevered, throwing every joule of his energy into the show.
He played the bongos like a crazy man, delivered streams of surreal and sometimes sick gags and let himself be judged on the full force of his personality.
Make no mistake, Spencer Brown is potentially a very great act.
But he has a long, long way to go to realise that potential.
His undoubted charisma currently just about carries - on a good night - much material that is too weak for words.
Brown finds hecklers hard to handle.
And he needs good direction to hone what he has; to sort the good from the bad, and help him to focus on selling his unique brand of lunacy to the comedy audience.
I'd love to see Spencer succeed and become a major comedy star.
At his best, he's hilarious. Yet at his worst, he throws it away.
STAR RATING (out of five): ****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Puppetry of the Penis, Gilded Balloon, EdinburghTHE JOY of genital origami has evaded me until now. But eventually, I could not resist the challenge of going to see for myself.
And what a cult this show seems to have become.
A queue stretched hundreds of yards down from the Gilded Balloon II Debating Hall. On closer inspection, it contained mainly women, clucking away in anticipation.
It was one like one enormous hen night.
As the start of show came closer, you could almost smell the excitement.
I had been told in previous years that Puppetry of the Penis was not just two blokes playing around with their willies. They were allegedly great personalities - witty in their own right.
When eventually every seat in the large venue had been filled, dry ice smoke filled the stage and a man dressed as a Roman walked on to deliver a corny script about the history of genital origami.
The tone had been set for the night.
It turned out that the original two penisteers had been replaced by a couple of youngsters with medium-sized penises that they proceeded to twist and contort in all directions and manner of ways.
The so-called dick tricks were quite clever and amusing - but their script wasn't.
It was wall-to-wall cheese; really lame gags, delivered badly.
The drunken women in the audience loved it, but one of the guys kept tripping over his lines and the repartee between them was artificial.
And all the talk of the 'business end of the show' stank of greed.
The fact that two entirely-different people can be slotted into the show made me wonder how much more franchising could take place in the comedy business.
It would not be difficult, for instance, to clone Supergirly - training singers to do the nasty lyrics and wear the tacky costumes - so they could be playing at several different venues at once.
On reflection, I would say both Supergirly and Puppetry of the Penis are really downmarket variety acts - rather than comedy ones, as I understand it.
There's nothing per se wrong with that.
Appealing to people's base instincts to get to their wallets is an art almost as old as the penis itself.
STAR RATING (out of five): *
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
Cyderdelic, Pleasance, Edinburgh
ECOWARRIORS BEWARE! Straight out of left-field is coming CYDERDELIC - a brilliant and inspired send-up of green crusaders, Swampies and New Age travellers everywhere.
This supposedly West Country trio kicked off their attack with a film clip from Sky TV, shot at last year's Fringe, and ending with the memorable line, 'We hope the Queen Mum hurries up and dies!'
Then they bounced on stage: two crusties in Parkers and rainbow hats and the non-speaking Frogga in a kind of red hooded coat, jumping around like Triggers on speed, and taking the piss out ecology like it's never been done before.
There's rap, street theatre, some stand-up and more extraordinary film footage.
The clip of them breaking into the London Studios to try to get on Richard and Judy's ITV show is absolutely hilarious - worth the ticket price in itself.
And tears of laughter were in my eyes as they kicked a football around at the Summer Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, 'scoring a goal' between two of the stones before legging it.
The May Day clip, when they marched on London with a reading banner 'Replace capitalism with something nicer', was also brilliant.
And the Huntingdon Life Sciences protest - attacking toy animals with baseball bats and putting the word out that badgers were being tortured inside the building - was as funny as it was plucky. I am amazed no one has punched them.
On the night, technical problems cost them a political clip shot in Southampton but it hardly detracted from the high quality of what they were doing.
The street theatre send-up of Scrooge with a bit of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was ace.
And their crap rapping was also excellent.
What Cyderdelic have found here is a rich seam of comedy that they are mining to the hilt.
And what a finale!
They led the audience out of the room and into the street, where Cyderdelic were picked up by their anarchic ambulance - 'the Ambience' - its sirens wailing.
It's a truly wonderful show that will prove hard for other comedians to match.
STAR RATING (out of five): *****
Chris Wilson
Edinburgh Fringe 2001 issue
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