list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL COMEDY
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BEC HILL: CAUGHT ON TAPE Silly yet emotional trawl through regret ●●●●●
FESTIVAL OF THE SPOKEN NERD: JUST FOR GRAPHS More graphs than laughs ●●●●● JONNY PELHAM: BEFORE AND AFTER Not-bitter tale of a difficult life ●●●●●
With Everything Everything then a remix of Edith Piaf playing while the audience enter, it’s not hard to guess the topic of Bec Hill’s latest show: regrets. She admits it isn’t an obvious choice for comedy but the burden of a big regret spurred her to ask the Twittersphere how people deal with theirs. Caught on Tape uses third-party stories but Hill
brings her own personal take to bear on each. She’s a delightful host, bursting with energy and game for trying her hand at shouted suggestions. Once she’s covered the regrets of bad dates, body functions and being an ‘unco’ (a handy Aussie phrase for someone who is uncoordinated), she moves onto the serious regrets of those grieving for loved ones, expertly handling the change in tone. Known for her comic art, the show opens and closes with her signature flip book. Her pictorial version of what the song ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ sounds like to an English speaker – lots of rears – is comedy gold. Her prop’s delivery is quicker than her sometimes patchy stand-up, with a laugh almost guaranteed on every page, but merged together they provide a balanced performance of heart and silliness. (Rowena McIntosh) ■ Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, until 31 Aug, 5.30pm, £8.50–£9.50 (£7.50–£8.50).
The classic Venn diagram takes a starring role in this show. Following last year’s Full Frontal Nerdity, ‘stand-up mathematician’ Matt Parker, ‘experiments maestro’ Steve Mould and ‘geek songstress’ Helen Arney all bring complementary skills to the table in a world where anything and everything can be analysed for entertainment.
As Mould says, real-life scenarios provide data- collection opportunities, not least the in-depth analysis of the contractions leading to the birth of his daughter. Elsewhere there’s booming song from Arney, Parker’s magician-like skills with tables of numbers, and some hands-on audience interaction.
Mould has shown off his science skills on Blue
Peter, and the stage show feels like a more interactive, academic version of that TV programme, a compliment as far as I’m concerned. It all adds up (ahem) to an admirable celebration of nerdiness, with extra fire and swearing added in for good measure. Yet it doesn’t quite live up to its promise of being a ‘graph-a-minute’ and feels less like a comedy show than an hour-long education that’s also entertaining. (Emma Newlands) ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 30 Aug, 6.30pm, £10–£12 (£8.50–£10.50).
Jonny Pelham is a unique young man (he plumps for ‘weird’ as the catch-all self-description). One of only 200 people in the UK who have popliteal pterygium syndrome, he was born with a cleft palate, webbed feet and more nipples than is standard. Merrily getting on with teenage life, the NHS stepped in to offer him reconstructive surgery of a purely cosmetic nature; the Before and After of the title suggests that this operation was a turning point in his life, both physically and psychologically.
Avoiding a steadfastly ‘woe is me’ tale, the Yorkshire comic discusses a gig that went horribly wrong and led to him receiving the ‘worst present ever’ while he bristles at the notion that he is fundamentally ‘brave’ simply because of what he has rather than anything to do with his actions.
What Pelham goes on to attempt next in comedy will be just as intriguing as this debut. Perhaps he’ll do a Wil Hodgson and continue to mine the ‘origins’ story that makes him stand out or he might decide that he’s got all that out of the way now. He certainly has the talent to successfully do whatever he so pleases. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 31 Aug, 6.45pm, £7–£9.50 (£6.50–£9).
NICK CODY: BEARD GAME STRONG Assured, incisive debut from Australia’s next big thing ●●●●●
You can see why Bill Burr and Jim Jefferies headhunted Nick Cody to provide support on their antipodean tours. The Australian has all the requisite blokiness tinged with a measure of self-disregard to fit right in with that pair’s core audience. He also just so happens to be in possession of a handful of routines that are among the most hilarious at this year’s Fringe, making him a strong contender for a Best Newcomer nomination. Bikram Choudhury might not have expected to crop up in a
bundle of Fringe comedy shows for his now-notorious ‘hot yoga’ technique, but Cody is straight in there, wondering what other activities could accurately be dubbed ‘Bikram’. There’s also an opening perusal of the methods he utilises to ensure that his own air travel experience is largely child-free and he has a few predictable but still funny attacks on fruitarians, food allergy sufferers and anyone who has the temerity to enjoy high art.
Where Cody truly excels is in his surgical dissection of daft
or dangerous things that have happened to him. These veer from the low-level jeopardy of being unable to fathom the safe workings of a toilet hose in a Thai hotel to the genuine peril of entertaining the troops in Kandahar with the Taliban preparing to strike on a seemingly hourly basis. As for the very close encounter with a bear in deepest Alaska, it’s an edge-of-the-seat tale which piles on the laughs. Cody’s Beard Game Strong is an analytical overview of the
modern male and an incisive exploration about where true heroism lies. Bravery might not reside in the act of telling jokes up on stage in front of a liberal, arts-appreciating audience. But within that context, the rap-loving Nick Cody goes the extra mile for his crowd. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 30 Aug, 9.40pm, £10–£12.50 (£9–£11.50).
20–31 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 47