THE REGGIE WATTS TANGENT
Jazz vocalist with surreal yarns O...
From the outset you can just tell this isn't gorng to be your average stand- up show. Disembodied voices '~.velcorne you in the door and you leave to the locked groove of records clunking into infinity. Which would be slightly disturbing in a way. if only it didn't make you laugh so much in between.
For 60 minutes we are led through the very peculiar synaptic exchanges that OCCur inside the head of trained jazz singer-turned coinic Reggie Watts. He revels in the chaos and confusron that life throws at us. Like the crazy kid at school who loved to show off but could never quite decide whether he wanted to be Superman. Barry White or Bruce Lee. he is actually all three at once.
He's the comedy equivalent of channel surfing: one second he's .Jern, Seinfeld. the next Chuck D. Eino Philips. Prince. Steven Wright and Jiini Hendrix. while soon after we get a public Information film about birds. We swing from lull to roar. rattle to whisper. propelled along the way by blunted yet hilarious one-liners and a cappella beatbox symphonies. Reggie Watts' show is a trip. and we suggest y0u hop on board. (Mark Robertson; I Underbe/ly. 0870 74:3 3083. unti/ 28 Aug {not I5), 10.30pm, £‘§)--l‘l()
(£7 7 . :SO—L‘ 8. 50).
OWEN O’NEILL
Greatest hits of a Fringe veteran 0...
During the last nine years Owen O'Neill has written a total of seven Fringe shows. So this year he decided he wouldn't bother. Instead he
presents us wrth the best of his shows. or rather. as he admits. his laVOLirite bits. The result is a catalogue
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of his life so far, from a chi-d grocxrng
up a Catholic in Northern Ireland in the
early 1960:; to the olis :-ss:ons he developed in later years
There's nothing new in the Angela's Ashes style. poor Irish upbringing stories that ()"Nerll tells. but the joy to this show is in the way he relates those tales. investing his all into each anecdote. He brings the characters to life with voices and lace pulling.
extracts humour lroin turns ol phrase and ‘.’If$li£tl imagery and succeeds in rnaintaining a taut suspense throughout. It all begins with the story
ol the (Zhristinas his Uncle Harry decided to donate a sheep to the dinner table. and moves on to his interrogation by the IRA as a soccer riiad teenager. through to the mental breakdown exacerbated by a preoccupation wrth the Rolling Stones and. in particular, Mick Jagger's lips. (Marissa Burgess)
I Hie Sta/id. {5:38 7272. untr/29Aug foot 15);, l..’i’:'>'p/n, 5‘8 (5‘7).
ANDREW MAXWELL A regal king size show from his mirthful majesty 0.0.0
If you see just one thing during this year’s Fringe comedy story, then you should be a bit ashamed. But if that’s your wish, then please, please, please take time out to see Andrew Maxwell’s impersonation of a South African baboon. Quite how a little Protestant fellow from Dublin with ‘cheap as chips working-class hair’, standing proudly at 5 foot 6 inches (easily the tallest man in his family, ever), should find it within himself to be transformed into a snarling, angry beast with burning cock in hand, threatening all passers-by with a frenzied crouch, is a glory to behold. As is his wont, Maxwell will take this image further to imagine how such a creature would look when raiding your mini-bar, but you should just leave the rest of that one to your imagination for now.
Set that next to his skulking version of a vitamin- deficient Niddrie radge advising a shamrock-jacketed Maxwell to stop baiting Rangers fans from what he foolishly believes to be the safety of his place in the Hibs end and you have a man giving Rory Bremner a run for his money. His Reginald D Hunter is pretty funny, too. But where Maxwell is most successful is nabbing
18 Aug MIL“)
an audience within his clutches from the very oft. Shuffling on stage as though he’s a member of the lighting crew who’s taken a wrong turning, the rightful King of Comedy (c/o Channel 4) dominates the stage and his crowd within seconds.
Declaring that he has had to rewrite most of his show, after the London bombings, he reels off some pretty devastating, clearly swiftly written material about the relief of being Irish in the light of terrorist activities by people from a different set of origins. There are some comics here who will make passing reference to the new ‘Troubles’, but Maxwell gets absolutely stuck in, seeing unlikely comedic possibilities around those who perpetrated the acts and about the fear running rife in London.
But if there is a central point to his show, and it’s often unclear through the tears of mirth in your eyes, it is the way that men are prone to changing their minds and being put off their original course of action. No more so is this highlighted than in the segment which recalls his encounter with the Rangers fans after the game he spent ‘bantering’ with them. Give the man another crown, we say. (Brian Donaldson)
I I’re.‘is.'i/ir,‘e,> Courtyard, 5):")(7‘ (£5):er. uritr/ 25) Aug “so! '5 8pm. Hi 5‘ i2 .’l‘f).r’>(l Hose.