KATY BRAND Tearing apart our celebrity culture 0”.
It's rare to see impersonators at the Fringe these days. But Katy Brand's series of sketches is less a showcase for her talents as a mimic than an excuse to put the boot into everything that‘s vile and nasty about our pathetic hero-worshipping culture. Brand's talent is to pinpoint the most grotesque aspects of her subject and exaggerate them by miles.
80. we meet an outrageously vulgar, aggressive Charlotte Church. quaffing Fanta and exchanging foul-mouthed insults with arch rival Aled Jones in the presence of a solemn Kofi Annan. Kate Winslet is portrayed as being so ultra-desperate to be NORMAL that she proudly shows off the wee and poo stains on her dress. Kate Moss is interminably ‘bored' and carries her child appendage around her waist. while Katie Melua is more clinically insane than ‘Crazy'.
Elsewhere. Brand's original characters — a compulsive letter- writer and a rampant, elderly canteen worker — are equally, crudely funny. This noisy. lewd show will not appeal to everyone's tastes but Brand. with her big expressive face and body, and outrageous material, is a performer to watch. (Allan Radcliffe) I Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550. until 29 Aug, 70.50pm, [8-29 (56.50—87.50).
LA CLIQUE
Entertaining, exotic and erotic 0...
Sit in the front row of this burlesque show and you'll get an eye-full of skin. In fact. sit almost anywhere in this venue and you'll get to see plenty of stretching, straining. wobbling
flesh. Reprising its popular late night run. La Clique showcases various acrobatic acts with the emphasis on the exotic and the erotic: a trapeze artist-cum-midair contortionist; a husband and wife roller-skating duo who generate considerable centrifugal force; a male belly dancer whose hips appear to be made of jelly; a striptease artist who plucks little red handkerchiefs from the rudest of bodily places; and. perhaps most impressively, the Caesar Twins. a couple of fine-toned blonde boys who defy gravity with a series of awesome grasp-and-lock manoeuvres. And the show is pulled together by a rubber dress-clad Madame who herself exhibits a nifty line in swallowing various lengthy appendages.
Over the course of two hours all this is not quite as naughty as you might imagine. It's all done in the best possible taste. and the less rowdy and more elderly crowd lap it up. But naughty or not. there's no getting away from the silky smooth professionalism of La Clique‘s various pneumatic performers. (Miles Fielder) I Splege/ Garden, 226 0000, until 3 Sep, 77.30pm, £7 l—El3.
TIM VINE
Current puns from tall gag machine .000
Many of Tim Vine's reviews begin by alluding to his world record for the amount of gags told in one hour. But then if you are party to that information. it may prepare you for the onslaught of one-liners and puns that Vine‘s hour-long show contains. It's an exhausting experience to watch as he delivers his jokes at a rapid fire pace. He even derives several from the prop of a fishing rod with a brain attached that he walks out on stage with. He's gloriously silly and at times groanworthy but you warm to Vine quickly. partly because one of his endearing qualities is his continual self-deprecation.
Opening with a voiceover featuring a psychologist explaining how persistent pun-making can be the
JEREMY LION Wine-soaked, blood-drenched party time! 000.
Children’s entertainers may seem a trifle too easy a target for parody. The naive innocence of producing plastic flowers from deep within your frock coat or twisting balloons into poodle shapes has long acquired a sinister edge, thanks to the dire deeds of such twisted turns as Krusty the Clown or the murderous John Wayne Gacy. But Jeremy Lion is more than just a menacing cat among some fresh, young pigeons. He succeeds in taking his flatulent, inebriated party performer beyond the single, lonely joke he might easily have been.
Lion’s act is essentially a botched attempt to conduct his youthful charges through a typically wholesome and healthy day of the kind those ruddy-cheeked, fair-skinned Ovaltineys might have enjoyed back in the 19405. But Lion is far from wholesome and healthy; he’s consumed far too many mint poppets and they’re repeating on him with gusto. His puppet theatre is populated by spirit bottles of varying shapes and sizes which leaves his production of Goldilocks and the Three Bears looking more like a wine tasting. Consequently, he’s displaying about as much affinity with children as Snow White’s wicked stepmother did with her pious charge. Also none too clever is his sidekick, Leslie, on keyboards, frequently the recipient of Lion’s ire and who is also bursting for a shit.
But if the stooge gets a hard time of it, Lion’s collection of cuddly animals endures the roughest ride. Boys and girls, say hello to Beef Richards the friendly cow. What’s that? You’ve forgotten your sandwiches? That’s OK: Beef Richards is food too! Burgers and offal and tripe! And look at all the cute little teddies, girls and boys. They’ll be getting stabbed with scissors if they’re too greedy and try to steal the food during their picnic.
With blood and entrails littering the stage, there’s even time for a spurious sex education lesson, involving a hideous bee and a grotesque blackbird. What fun! Then it’s straight into the Tidying Up song, before teeth and bed. Yes indeed, Lion’s show is as crude and grotty as it sounds. It’s also marvellous, outrageous fun, an instance of character comedy at its most compelling, the performer succeeding in bringing a certain level of pathos to his character’s misguided attempts to entertain and educate that elicits sympathy as well as mirth. (Allan Radcliffe)
I Pleasance COurtyard, 556 6550, until 29 Aug, 6.25pm, £‘8.50-—£‘Q.5(l ($.‘7—-.“8l.
a 30 second-long routine. hilariously havmg to backtrack Out of his closing sequence to do the jOkO.
(Marissa Burgess)
I Pleasa/ ice Courtyard. 5:36 (5550, untr/2QAi/g. (5.40pm, [I 74512 (E‘Sl50—E‘IOSO).
symptom of someone who is socially inept. he frequently japes that there are still another couple of hours left. So much is crammed into the show. so many gags. that he even forgets about a poor sap waiting backstage dressed in a pink hippo costume for
2’5) Aug 8 530;) Z)()():'» THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 81