DWIGHT SLADE
Slade has a few bees in ' _- ‘j : Sneering. swaggering delights in this electric performance his well-coiffed barnet " ‘ ' . a...
He may have been Bill Hicks' childhood friend but Dwight Slade is a bitter, unhinged. and brilliant comic in his own right. And he possesses the finest hairdo this side of a German Michael Bolton convention. What Vidal Sassoon would give for five minutes alone with this coiffeur . . .
Anyway, Slade‘s locks are surprisingly glossy considering the 29 hours spent in airports getting to Edinburgh. Take a bow. the North American blackouts. But while the power cut cost their economy billions. it almost cost Edinburgh one of America‘s finest award-winning comedians.
So. Slade is a pissed off man with several chips. sorry. tries. on his shoulder. And they are certainly not of the freedom variety. He rails against the culture of conformity that pervades the US. and with a heartfelt cry of ‘Think for yourself‘ and a face that amplifies expressions to absurd levels. he turns his bile on Microsoft, coffee culture and Britney Spears.
Slade's ironic barbs. which got him fired from a plethora of mind-numbing menial jobs. are a sneering. swaggering delight that firmly put the nail in the coffin labelled ‘Americans don‘t get sarcasm‘. This is so sarcastic it could curdle milk.
While we share that cruel humorous trait, some cultural references do not make it all the way across the Atlantic. Britons do not eat at Olive Garden, watch Joe Millionaire, wear Eddie Bauer, shop at Wal-Mart, or drive mini-vans, but a sizeable chunk of Slade’s routine assumes we do. You almost wish we did. even though he condemns all of the above. just to get the obviously great joke. When such discrepancies slow the pace. Slade just reanimates the show with some good old-fashioned slapstick. Never was so much pleasure derived from something so simple as a grown man screaming so hard his lungs might put in an appearance as he tries to rid his barnet of an imaginary bee. Slade performs these high~degree histrionics like a rubber-faced Duracell bunny.
New York should have plugged its grid into this dynamo and tapped into one of the most entertainingly animated performers
at the festival. (Edd McCracken) .. _‘u I up '. ,
ROSS NOBLE
Mercurial madness 00.0
"There is a definite air of anticipation as the capacity crowd shufer in. particularly With the furore surrounding ticket prices. Ross Nohle has a lot to prove. And prove it he does. With effortless ease. jumping from the sexual practises of Mogwais to man tits as easily as Superman clears tall huildings. His spontaneous; riff on (Z()lllllllllllll.’ workers iall due to the man in the pristine lemori shirt seated in the front row; was electric, And God bless the lityear old who presented an almost infinite number of jump off points for a
corwoluted mind such as Noble's.
His thick Geordie accent adds to the scalltx'xag charm. and his rrianiacal hounds across stage and physical apirig of everything frorii killer pigs to sexually ahusirig pigeons is astounding
Noble's most prestigious talent is that too can nexer spot the joins hetweeri l(?£l|ll\ and his fen'ent imagination or hetween his free-wheeling impr'oi; |llfi£lllll\ and the scripted sections iassuming there must he sorrie scripted sectionsi. And that is the real ]()\,I it all feels so off-the-cuff: the ehtzs and flows so natural There are echoes of a young Blll‘, Connolly in his {ll)ll|l\' to venture off the heaten track g.et return to his starting point at seemingh randorr‘.. yet logical. intervals. The whole hour is a flux of liquid delirium; {.ou get the impression he could spraff on all night iat one point threatening to lock the doors and do Just thati. But their it just ends. abruptly No climax. IeaVing you feeling high. on. and abandoned.
Where he goes next is a mystery Will he return next {.ear'.‘ Will telex'ision shackle his talents? But in standup he's reached the top of his game ifew comedians can boast an animated stage set quite like hisi. Ross Noble is money well spent in antene's reality. iHenry Northmorei I Asserribli Rooms. 226 2428 mm 23 Aug. 9pm. F. 72—5? 7:” (fro-E 79.
48 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE QT Ana» -2 Set