{COMEDY} Reviews
DAVID O’DOHERTY IS LOOKING UP ●●●●● RORY SHERIDAN’S TALES OF THE ANTARCTICA ●●●●● Immaculate content delivered with furious enthusiasm
A jar of sausages forms the link between David O’Doherty’s stand-up and storytelling shows. In the former, one appears in his funniest reminiscence – about driving a giant Hoover designed to scoop up smashed jars in a German sausage factory. In the latter – his monologue as Edwardian explorer Rory Sheridan – it plays a supporting role to several hundred tins of cabbage that contribute to the fart-based denouement of the hapless adventurer’s escape from the Antarctic ice.
O’Doherty looks and sounds good. He’s slim and loud – he near-shouts both sets with the vehemence of a motivational speaker. His stand-up routine’s so tight that the only pause comes when his water tips over, threatening to drown one of his beloved tiny keyboards, and offering the opportunity to reference deglaciation and paternoster lakes. Soon, he returns to the practised pace of his winning song-digression- song formula. Like a man diligently sucking up frankfurters, O’Doherty’s quality control means that if he trips up on one word within a spectacular sentence like ‘retooled Icelandic haddock sloop’, he’ll backtrack to say the right thing. This strictness is the slight downfall of Rory Sheridan,
whose Shackleton-esque snow trousers fall down unnoticed as O’Doherty rattles through acts of derring-do. Being in The Antarctica (sic) is like ‘being stuck in a shed with men and their farts’, he roars at the show’s opening. He’s still bellowing at the end, playing on his hallmark mixture of intense delivery and innocuous content, but the tone has begun to feel one- note. The strength of both productions is the Irishman’s marvellous brain. It’s only the packaging that sometimes spoils his premium comedy products. (Jonny Ensall) ■ David O’Doherty is Looking Up, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 29 Aug, 7.20pm, £14–£15 (£12–£13); Rory Sheridan’s Tales of The Antarctica, Underbelly, 0844 545 8252, until 28 Aug, 3.20pm, £9.50–£10 (£8.50–£9).
MARK THOMAS Following a dangerous tourist trail ●●●●● GAVIN WEBSTER Likeably profane and bitter hour ●●●●●
ERIC LAMPAERT An engaging but ultimately flat Eric ●●●●●
L A V I T S E F
The problem with political comedy is that, in sharing a joke with a person also making a serious point, you can become confused about what it is you’re signing up for. Added to this, Mark Thomas has an enviable rhetorical tool at his disposable – he’s a Lahndahner, and therefore (as any advertising exec will tell you) you’re more likely to believe him. With all this power, it’s to his credit that he keeps
this show – about a rambling trip along the wall that separates Israel and Palestine in the West Bank – free from any major political statements. Yes, it’s weighted against Israeli attitudes, but the meat of the performance is his patented Honest Bloke’s look at the situation from two sides of a massive fence.
Or not a fence, as Thomas clarifies. The Israelis
call it a ‘fence’, the Palestinians a ‘wall’. It is, as he discovers, a mixture of gutters, barbed wire, concrete and gaps. It’s the specificity with which he treats a vastly complicated and seemingly inexorable problem that makes this refreshing. The whole thing is delivered at breakneck speed, while the sweat that pours off him shows the astonishing energy he puts into everything he does. (Jonny Ensall) ■ The Bongo Club, 557 2827, until 20 Aug, 7.30pm, £14.50 (£10).
38 THE LIST 18–25 Aug 2011
According to Geordie comic Gavin Webster, ‘all young people are cunts’. He believes that so much that he’s been driven to name this year’s Fringe show with the phrase, concluding his amiable hour with a profanity-fuelled sing-along. Admitting to being slightly haphazard in his approach, he has sheets of A4 and rough print-outs, which he fumbles in order to heighten a point. Perhaps someone told him that you have to put extra effort into a Fringe show, when you suspect that Webster would simply prefer to just stand there and tell stories.
And for 60 minutes he is good company, trying
desperately not to sound bitter but largely failing. He begins with his own definition of both ‘young’ and ‘a cunt’ so we’re all on the same page; though the accent he adopts suggests that in his mind’s eye, they are all straight outta Oxbridge.
Still, he has wider targets, including those who he feels have helped to shape the current culture: namely Simon Cowell, Oprah, Thatcher and Alan Sugar. With a bit of luck, Webster won’t lose that bitter edge so he can continue creating amusing Fringe shows into his dotage. (Brian Donaldson) ■ The Stand II, 558 7272, until 28 Aug, 5.50pm, £8 (£7).
Bounding onstage with a winning grin and infectious enthusiasm, Eric Lampaert warns the audience that he has a short attention span. He needn’t have bothered with the warning. What seems like a promising show is hopelessly derailed by Lampaert’s distractions. Where he begins to explain that he was raised in dozens of different countries, speaks at least four languages and has a rich trove of comedy fodder from these singular facts, he soon loses interest and begins riffing on anything that seemingly flits through his mind. And the show is poorer for it. A re-enactment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer being thwarted by bloodsuckers of different religions contained initial promise, but like most of Lampaert’s improvs, it was overstated and overplayed. Another bit with gangsters comparing the merits of sandbags is endless and borderline excruciating. It appeared that much of the original show was abandoned to indulge in such ill-conceived comedy. All of which is a shame as he seems a genuinely funny act. Eric Lampaert is charming, his gags can be funny, and he’s definitely engaging, but he lacks discipline and it sinks his show. (Carmody Wilson) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 29 Aug, 6pm, £9.50–£12 (£8–£10.50).