Tonight’s bonfire night show promises fireworks; and indeed we get fireworks, metaphorically and literally.
But, first up is the deceptively soft-spoken laid-back style of Drew Taylor, who makes much of his Welshness, without in any way demeaning the land of his fathers, and has lots of sly wit on many subjects including sex, the Welsh flag, God’s sexual preferences, Romania (!), secrets of the classroom teacher and much more. Clever stuff.
Fran Kissling, on the other hand relentlessly travesties the supposed tight-assed attitudes of her claimed Switzerland home. This, what you might call taking the Swiss, is extreme, with a robotic delivery, obsession with tidiness and discipline, cod meaningless games with audience members, and more such enjoyable nonsense. Highly original, and very funny.
Daniel Dagger, making his debut on stage as a stand-up, is also Welsh; but not in any way laid-back, and is quite vitriolic about his home town of Swansea, in and among some pretty good observational gags on non-Welsh stuff (though he, too, gets some laughs about the dragon on the flag). A promising start.
The headline act, Chris Lynam, is well-nigh indescribable. This is comedy with no boundaries. He capers about the stage, shouting at himself and the audience with tremendous, totally unhinged, what shouldn’t be gags, but somehow are.
Surreal doesn’t really do him justice. Dada meets punk, maybe; but with new and never otherwise attempted approaches to nob gags and everything else. Complete breathless madness, which has the audience roaring – and finishes with the promised fireworks: a large one stuck between the buttocks of a now naked comedian. Whoosh! An utterly bizarre end to a helluva comedy evening.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****
