FESTIVAL COMEDY REVIEWS
NICK MOHAMMED Radio 4 star returns with camp creation ●●●●●
Mr Swallow is probably character comedian Nick Mohammed’s most famous creation. This camp, easily distracted but infinitely cheerful northerner has enjoyed past Fringe success and a Radio 4 series, and Mohammed is currently working on a BBC TV show based around him.
The theme for Mr Swallow’s 2012 talk is ‘numbers’, incorporating a makeshift round from Countdown and a hilarious diatribe – complete with graphs – about the numerical inaccuracies of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. The momentum doesn’t quite kick into gear immediately, but Mohammed’s easy-going charm means the audience is behind him even when he loses his way. Although he drifts off-topic often, the theme stays intact; one highlight is a character based on his sweet but forgetful accountant, giving the relentlessly high-pitched Mr Swallow a short – and much needed – break.
And in the end, Mohammed brings all the number strands of his show together masterfully, creating a memorable finish that easily makes up for the lags in pace of the preceding hour. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 26 Aug,
DOCTOR BROWN Free spirit gets the audience playing along ●●●●●
The evocatively entitled Befrdfgth doesn’t open with a fanfare, a burst of music or even a light- ing cue. Instead, the curtain at the back of the stage twitches, almost imperceptibly, and a nose is glimpsed in the ensuing gap. The curtain balloons, getting bigger and bigger until it’s moving shape- lessly among us in the audience. A hand emerges, snatches up a woman’s bag, and the curtain shrinks once more to the back of the stage. When Doctor Brown eventually appears from beneath that inflatable black mass, resplendent in
kaftan, headscarf and fulsome beard, he stares at us with all the wonder of a child seeing snow for the first time. After trying out a few moves, a spot of weightlifting, boxing and a half-hearted bullfight, he ups the ante, delivering an eye-wateringly authentic mimed blow-job and pulling the entrails out of the bull’s stomach.
It’s the level of detail that makes the good doc’s manoeuvres so compelling, not to mention his fearlessness in interacting with the audience and his ability to get us playing along. Whether shin- ing a beaming spectator’s bald head or enticing another to spank him hard on the bottom, there’s a wonderful pervading sense of collusion in something silly and naughty but life-affirming at the same time.
The pièce de résistance is a routine on an imaginary motorbike with the audience coerced into creating the sounds of a bell, a horn and a gong, the sound and actions increasing until our hero is dancing a frenzied tarantella in the middle of the stage.
It’s a brilliant show, a slow build that goes out on a high and, while probably carefully crafted, gives the impression of being completely weightless, off the cuff and entirely free from the burdens of everyday life. (Allan Radcliffe) ■ Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, until 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 9.05pm, £10.50–£11.50 (£9.50–£10.50).
PETE JOHANSSON Bear necessities from crack Canadian ●●●●●
It seems that in Pete Johansson’s Utopian Crack Pipe, there’s less of the crack and more of the bear. The plaudits that have adorned the Canadian since his debut Fringe show was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Newcomer Award in 2009 have once again been earned as he’s dreamed up another hour of solid comedy that is simultaneously provocative, surreal and moving. The show is loosely hung on the proposition that
an influx of bears could solve many of the UK’s problems, particularly the law and order ones. It may begin as a daft premise but by the end, so persuasive is he that you have to wonder if it might just work. In among the bear theories are Johansson’s typically close-to-the-bone gags poking fun at his audience’s sensibilities and morality.
The cheeky gags are tempered by Johansson’s own sensitivity as he shows his soft belly (metaphorically speaking). And as for the bears, they’re a lot like us you know. Just a bit bigger and a lot hairier. (Marissa Burgess) ■ Underbelly Bristo Square, 0844 545 8252, until 27 Aug (not 13), 8.40pm, £10–£12.50 (£9–£11.50).
MICHAEL MITTERMEIER We have ways of making you bored ●●●●●
The omens were good for Michael Mittermeier. Accompanied by Eddie Izzard’s endorsement, the German has toured widely in the Anglophone world and his publicity shots contain no lederhosen or sausages. It’s a shame, then, that Mittermeier’s set is as cliché-laden as anything you might encounter on Graham Norton’s Eurovision coverage. OK, it’s a show about national stereotypes so the introductory references to Italian footballers’ dramatic skills and the perils of flying Ryanair can be forgiven. But when he rolls out the towels-on-sun- loungers material, it feels like we’ve been handed a checklist of all that’s bad about cultural comedy.
There are flashes of a better wit, but mostly Mittermeier is over-egging his punchlines with needless mugging (his zombie and robot impressions are more or less identical). After repeatedly professing to be our safari-style guide to those odd creatures they call foreigners, he succeeds in telling us nothing new. (Laura Ennor) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 27 Aug (not 13, 20), 9.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).
40 THE LIST 9–16 Aug 2012