doesn‘t lack domestic material to plunder.
Godley starts and ends with her straight-talking. hard as nails mammy, taking in her lack of natural parenting aptitude. the poverty of her 19608 childhood and the eternal difference between men and women. She combines hackneyed subjects with a wealth of personal experience to create punchlines that land with a kick of authenticity.
Talking in the manner of a friendly chat. albeit a filthy one. Godley welcomes the audience into the room one by one. imploring them to join her family, in immensely likable style. She‘s keen to pass on any wisdom gleaned from her mother. the most useful of which is probably. ‘If in doubt talk about your fanny‘.
Not quite from the Nigella Lawson school of domesticity then.
(Suzanne Black) I Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 25 Aug, 7pm, BIO—£77 ($850—$950).
JANEY GODLEY . Family tale from straight-talking Glaswegian 000
The title of this show. Domestic God/ey. doesn't refer to the cooking. cleaning. dinner parties ‘domestic goddess' stereotype. Janey Godley’s candid stand-up is specific to her east end of Glasgow upbringing and subsequently eventful life. With a murdered mother, husband with Asperger's. well-educated daughter and brother with drug problems. she
Maj
THE MEETING coco THE JONNY AND JOE SHOW on
Hanging loose with sketches and site-specific silliness
Two disgruntled men get up and walk out of The Meeting just minutes before a mysterious mobile phone twitters away. The beauty of this site-specific gem is that it’s not immediately certain whether these are an unfortunate series of two events or subtle comic ruses put in place to further the sense of disorientation in this boardroom setting just a few minutes walk from the Pleasance. One minute, Simon Bird, Joe Thomas and Jonny Sweet are bickering about the minutiae of office life, the next they are not so much dipping their toes as plunging headlong into surrealist mayhem.
It’s one thing to concoct a brilliant idea (a meeting headed up by executives who are afraid of ghosts, unsure what petty cash is and hellbent on finding a missing mug) another is to pull it off. The trio collectively known as the House of Windsor are proving that their vision of silliness is currently being matched by a playful talent. Escaping the shirt and tie, Bird had been concentrating on the Chortle Student Comedy Award final (he came second) while Sweet and Thomas have been playing around some more in The Jonny and Joe Show though others might call it ‘dicking about’.
Somewhat looser than in their 2006 Fringe sketch debut The Future, Sweet and Thomas are clearly having a blast. Scenes of wanton violence and senseless audience participation are bookended by a discordant signature tune, showing the pair fully relaxing into their partnership and getting to grips with their burgeoning and totally deserved cult status. (Brian Donaldson)
I The Meeting, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550. until 25 Aug, 6. 20pm. 2950—2 7050 (28—29); The Jonny and Joe Show, Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 25 Aug. 8. 70pm, $850—$950 (f7—E8).
78 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 21 Aug—~11 Sep 2008
JASON BYRNE Totally insane, bloody funny 00..
Several things will probably happen at a Jason Byrne gig. A teenage boy in the crowd will squirm while Byrne guesses what he gets up to behind closed bedroom doors. Audience
I members get assigned surreal
characters. based around something Byrne's caught them doing (speaking quietly. sitting apart from their husband. using posh words when they answer) and the title of the show won't be mentioned once. This year's pointless name is Cats Under Mats. Having Chats with Bats.
ln Byrne‘s case. sticking to the formula he's perfected after 12 Edinburgh Fringes is an absolutely spot—on strategy. It wasn't broke. so he doesn't need to fix it. He lights fresh comedy dynamite with material about his killjoy wife. always the designated adult to his perma-child arseing around; a priest that got his kicks during children's' confessions: and his son. who Byrne thinks might be traumatised by his make-believe- loving dad. It's not envelope-pushing or controversial stuff. it's just bloody funny. and ridiculously well done. An absolute master of improvisation. magically conjuring up material from his crowd. he's proof that funny bones do exist. (Claire Sawers) I Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 25 Aug, 8.40pm, 274—277(E13—E76).
FOOL KOLLER
Wet feral fun from Dutch pratfaller OOO
The ambit of what has not yet been done shrinks ever smaller. Pity the poor alternative comedians, clutching at auxiliary originalities as the pool of unprecedented material ebbs to nothing: slicker. quicker jokes. more postmodernism, cynicism. attitude. But don't pity Eric Koller, whose
virtuoso physical comedy is an ingenuous. stonking, very continental antidote to all that is reflexive and incestuous in Anglophone comedy. For some. the Dutchman's largely
; wordless slapstick will come off as too
primitive and yes. there are several segments that lean too heavily on unsophisticated if accomplished gurning and pratfall. But Koller can defend himself on two fronts. Physical comedy predated verbal comedy. and is the basis of it. And Koller is an outright whiz.
He is rubber-limbed, rubber-faced and turbo-charged. A good deal of the sweat he works up ends up on the
audience. who are very much
participant in this interactive show. The unlettered ingenuity with which he spawns a human Punch and Judy show. a faulty bingo game and a squirting. spurting finale rivals that of many great wisecrackers. Not for every reveller, but wet feral fun is pretty much guaranteed. (Sam Healy)
I Hill Street Theatre, 226 6522, until 25 Aug, 7 0.45pm, 69—610 (27—28).
JARLATH REGAN
A charming but semi-comatose hour 000
When you Google ‘relax the cax'. you will be asked. ‘Did you mean “relax the car"?' Well. of course not. that's just silly. But perhaps more daft is that gentle Irish comic Jarlath Regan failed to find it within himself to explain the title of his show to a non-Emerald lsle Crowd. But then. you can see how the thought might never have entered his
' head. as Regan is a very laid-back
chap. insisting that he's never been in a fight and will avoid confrontation at every turn. He can't even bring himself to shout at his dad when he phones up every single day with the same question about working the TV remote convol
To relax a cax is Dublin slang for remaining in a calm demeanour when you are sorely being put to the test. Wanting Jarlath Regan to crank up the joke count is about as close to fury as you're ever likely to get in this charming lrishman‘s company. (Brian Donaldson) I Gilded Balloon Teviot, 668 7633. until 25 Aug, 4pm, $850—$950 (87.50—68.50).