LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL REVIEWS FESTIVAL COMEDY
TREVOR LOCK Sex tapes theory falls on deaf ears ●●●●● GEORGE RYEGOLD’S GOD-IN-A-BAG Comic play that scrapes close to the bone ●●●●●
It’s not a good day for Trevor Lock. Faced with a particularly quiet audience, he seems flustered, and his material – which is in the main well-written and funny – suffers because of it. Last year, Lock and his girlfriend visited a nudist beach in the south of France, where they received an unexpected sexual proposition from a large, naked Gallic gentleman.
Through this story, Lock tries to present us with
a thoughtful comic routine about sex tapes and how we view ourselves. But as jokes fail to ignite the audience, he desperately diverges off topic and never really regains the momentum he displays in the first few minutes. In the past, Lock has performed with Stewart Lee
and Russell Brand but here he betrays a lack of confidence in his script when the laughs don’t come and, painfully, even attempts to explain some of the jokes. There are a lot of funny ideas in his rou- tine and, with a little more certainty and belief, this would be an amusing and thought-provoking show. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ The Hive, 226 0000, until 26 Aug, 6pm, £5.
If God-In-A-Bag was on TV, it would be a fairly conventional sitcom, but on stage it becomes some- thing altogether more entertaining. That’s partly down to a script that is punctuated with the kind of risqué jokes – a blow-by-blow review of a porn film delivered, rather inappropriately, as a school class- room lecture – that would probably not be accept- able in your living room. But what really elevates this show, which revolves
around an under-achieving academic and his less ambitious chums and colleagues, is the vividly real- ised creation of Dr George Ryegold, an unpleasant yet not unlikeable character who bears comparison with Edmund Blackadder. Watching Toby Williams wax lyrical as the self- satisfied, lazy, corpulent and tight-fisted yet smart, educated, good-humoured Ryegold is a genuine pleasure. He lights up the stage each time he appears, and while those scenes without him feel flat, the supporting cast of four acquit themselves ably enough in less well-defined roles. A late-night television (or radio) series wouldn’t go amiss. (Miles Fielder) ■ Underbelly, Bristo Square, 0844 545 8252, until 27 Aug (not 13), 1.45pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).
EDDIE PEPITONE What it’s like to see a comedian self-heckle ●●●●●
Allow yourself to imagine, if you dare, Ed Aczel having his levels of energy cranked up by, say, 716% and being forced to talk in an even-paced New York accent. You’re now sort-of on the way to getting a sense of a night out with Eddie Pepitone. Or to use comparisons from his compatriots, he shifts between the primal screaming of the early 80s Hicks-Leary monster and the urbane hush of a Todd Barry.
In the same tight bunker that Edinburgh was introduced to Doug Stanhope and Hans Teeuwen, we welcome the imposing figure of Eddie Pepitone and proceed to luxuriate in his Bloodbath. He won’t be the only comedian in August talking about the Olympics or social media or detergent advertising (maybe), but there’s no way any of them will be coming at the subject from his perspective. And all those lame impersonators should cop a load of his lounge-singer-having-war-flashbacks sequence. Nothing appears to properly faze Pepitone and when a front-row table strategically walks out one-
by-one in four-minute intervals, he eventually exacts a roundabout revenge by taking his own spot in the crowd and heckling his now invisible self on stage with a series of probably revelatory outbursts. To drag in a final reference point, Pepitone displays the kind of anti-comedy bravado and conven-
tion-trashing anarchy that Johnny Vegas pulled off at the start of his Fringe career. And while we soon discovered that Vegas was a total construct who kept his audience permanently on the edge of their nerves, we feel as though somehow we should be able to get to know this jovial New Yorker. But the true mystery of Eddie Pepitone lingers long after he has chuckled his last giggle and yelled his final self-deprecating insult. (Brian Donaldson) ■ The Tron, 556 5375, until 26 Aug (not 14), 11.40pm, £8–£10.
THE HISTORY GIRLS Wuthering Heights meets Missy Elliott ●●●●●
There’s something pleasingly old-fashioned about The History Girls, a sketch trio who all trained at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris. Their sketches are unashamedly silly, drawing on the well of British tra- dition and sending it up in giddy, Pythonesque style. Their targets are all women held up as paragons in history and literature, from Guinevere to the Brontës. In the process, they demystify these normally seri- ously regarded people and make them great figures of fun. They start strongly with Queenagers, an MTV
reality show styling of Queen Mary, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Anachronistic music from the likes of MIA, Missy Elliott and Kate Bush make for a hilarious soundtrack, but the animations screened between sketches fall flat. Throughout, there’s a sense that if you don’t get the reference, you won’t understand the humour, and it often feels like half the audience is left out of the jokes. But the threesome are brilliant, charismat- ic performers – Vanessa Faye-Stanley’s Anne Brontë is particularly funny – who deliver a slick, smart rou- tine. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 27 Aug (not 13), 7.45pm, £11–£12 (£9.50–£10.50).
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