MITCH BENN AND THE DISTRACTIONS Bridges the divide between Bruce Forsyth and Eminem
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Benn's shew tlrts between musical genres like an attention-rletterent reenru collector. Rockabilly and hip hop vre for mus‘real space wrth a lost Beatles song. ‘My Name is Macbeth. an Eminem pastiche. should keep Seamus Heaney happy. iErld McCracken.
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CHARLIE ROSS Welcome to Munchkinland
Charlie Ross wants to know why gay men love the l‘l/r/ara' of Oz. ‘lt could be that we connect with the
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loneliness of [)eretnl. er rt may Just be a big pile at camp nensense.‘ (leerrles the Glaswegran. Proving that not all gay comedians fit into the outrageous Graham
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Hats off to the king of cringe
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GLENN WOOL
Penis envy. pig's ears and subversive politics
Now. here's a proud boast: at the climax of every performance of his 2002 Fringe show. Canadian stand-up Glenn Wool succeeded in reducing every male in the audience to a grimacing. dewy-eyed wreck. The reason? The excruciating true story of Wool's painful biopsy. which involved the insertion of an endoscope into his member.
'I feel sorry for a couple of comics I know who've had to go through the same thing. but can‘t even use it as material.‘ laughs Wool. reminiscing. 'They're like: “Aw. that's Glenn
Wool‘s stuff“.‘
And delightful stuff it is too. But don‘t trot along to the Pleasance expecting an hour of gratuitous knob gags. As the deliberately ambiguous title of last year‘s show, Bizarre Cocktail. implies. Wool‘s material is an unnerving brew of laid-back observations and subversive political ranting ('Yeah. I do a tight ten on Christianity.‘ he quips) while his onstage disposition ranges from easygoing to eyebrow-cocked incredulity.
This approach has already earned him comparisons to such greats as Bill Hicks and Bill Cosby. Yet Wool admits he may have to tone down his material should the big time come calling. ‘Yeah. talking in such graphic detail about my cock problems might not be to everyone‘s taste.‘ he says. ‘You don‘t want to throw the sow’s ear before the silk purses.’
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THE RETURN OF
THE JINGLEBERRIES They kid you not
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