comedians doing the most beautiful sleight of hand card magic while berating the universe Just for being there? You'd like to hope that the world will one day catch up with Sadowit/ but it's more likely that the world is as disgracefully fucked as he suggests. But in the polite confines of a listed Edinburgh building in the afterglow of a summer day, it's neither fashionable nor favourable to say so.
Not a man for satire. Sadowrt/ peppers his Card Tricks 8 Close Up Magic set with rainbows of expletives but his fondness for rampant racism. sexism and homophobia are a smokescreen: it's Just good old— fashioned nihilism. Sadowit/ hates everyone. present company included. As grating as this can get (especially sans punchline) it‘s all Just gravy. The whole pornt is that the man has a deftness With cards that is incomparable and when he gets serious With the illusions he takes your breath away. It's a quaint trade. but he's a master.
In a time when bloated toads pass themselves off as the keepers of the keys to a world of magic. we need someone like Sadowitx. grumpin pissing into the airholes in Davrd Blaine's Perspex box. ilvlar'k Robertson)
I Assembly Rooms. 226 2428, until 25) Aug (not 15). (5.2.5p/n, 5‘124‘18 lift l--5‘l2l.
ROB DEERING Nostalgia never felt so good 0000
‘l've never really accepted I'm not in a band.‘ explains Bob Deering midway through his hugely inVIgorating show. Certainly. Deering's brand Of musical comedy is more about enthusiasm than it is about satire. The stand up. who can Currently be seen looking punchable in a Cider advert. spends the bulk of the evening playing rock songs on a flying V guitar. using effects pedals to lay punchy rifts over basslines. his face twrstrng in mimicry.
It's an easy to whose approach: Bill Bailey has been doing this sort of thing With far more subversive intent for years. Deering more than gets away With it. partly for his nimble playing but largely because of the sheer beaming energy that invests his every move. One gets the impression he would happily do this
for see non-Festival magazine
sort of thing in an empty room. With a crowd to riff off. a theme loosely based around ‘rock decades' and some very sharp stand-up material. the effect is rather wonderful. Deering pastiches Destiny's Child. Dylan. the Sex Pistols and Oasis and ends the show With a rather cheering song about 'arseholes'. If you like your pop. you'll love th s show almost as much as [)eering. who looks overjoyed throughout. his dreams as good as realised. (James Smart) I Underbelly, ()8 /'() MI) (9088, until 28 Aug (not 10'). IO. [Op/n. 1‘9. 50-45 IO. 50 (l. ‘8~ $.19).
KIKI & HERB
Showtime that‘s close to the knuckle 0000
They say you're only as good as your audience. and Judging by the enthusmstic wavrng and screaming response that meets Kiki 8. Herbs opening number. which demands the crowd to put its ‘motherfucking hands in the air". this duo is damn good. Resplendent in fishnets and slung into a sparkly red dress. Kiki works every inch of her face and body. clambering aboard a stool to put cycling actions to a lien/red interpretation of Belle 8 Sebastian's 'Fox in the Snow' oi reaching out to the audience With. the entreaty 'touch Kiki'. ; s she belts out songs in the only nightmaristh melodramatic way she knows how.
In between boo/y flailirigs imagined as beautiful gestures and sWigs of Jack. the ageing divebar diva and her comparatively mute ivory tickling companion stagger through stories of their friendship as inmates of a government run facility. lhis is mingled With the odd foray into topicalin ("if there are any suicide bombers in the audience tonightf says Kiki. ‘please. detonate yourselves now I'm tired) as they don't so much perform songs as thrash the liVing daylights out of them.
Those of a frail musical disposition best steer clear. yet a Marmite like duality means that if you don't hate every second of this performance. you could find it utterly compelling. (Katy McAulayl I Pleast'ince Courtyard. use (5:350. until 28 Aug (not 1.5816. 27823). 10pm, l‘l roe f‘l;’.:’>() ll‘ltl 5‘] ll.
JACKIE LOEB
Tunes and terror from 02 lady .00.
Australian comedy divas: you can't love 'em and you are not allowed to kill them. km a penny at l r‘inge time.
these little madams generally tend to have a quirky. unfunny grasp of both their own material and their rapidly reductive audiences. Thankfully, Jackie Loeb does not walk among these people. Her curious brand of musical comedy. impression and Aussie vulgarity holds you even when her slightly flaky yet self-aggrandising stage personality threatens to capsr/e the whole act.
After a slightly awkward start where loeb piledrives as many really crap iokes into the audience by way of a warm up as she possibly can utter. things quickly heat up when her organ comes out. Lee is ll‘il)(Elf3()ll£ltl()llf; of everyone from Tracy ()ltzipiriari to Macy Gray are run riiasterpieces as they are not really about the impresszons at all: their purpose is ir‘ fact to partially iriasduerade the littering madness of l oe'b's hilarious stage persona. whose bravery and bloody minded control of her audience is beyond reproach.
lhe slow realisation that you are beginning to see the world through her izitiiirli<:e(l eyes Will have you doubled up Willi laughter. Not everything works here however: a skit involving Barbara Bush and a show tune from Clii(.u'1go falls flat but loeb's energy and innovation. if not her originality. deserves considerable praise. il’atil [)alei I (ii/(led Balloon levrot. (568 1633. until 28 Aug lnof 75)). 10.45pm. 5'84'9 (5'7 5‘8).
SIMON MUNNERY
True confessions from a beardless wonder 0000
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write their sphinxlike ‘motions‘ on a piece of paper so he can read them out in the second bit. Simon Munnery's AGM affects a shambolic aura. with rambling anecdotes tumbling over philosophical musings. Add to that songs that SOund like the Fall fronted by Billy Bragg. a crucifixion sketch in tandem with Boothby Graffoe. and a reading from his ‘True Confessions of Sherlock Holmes'. and there's a show on.
lt's actually a lot slicker than some of his previous work. which matches the comics beardless chin. He even throws in a few handfuls of crisp one- liners. especially in a sketch about a seCurity guard, in which he puts on an orange jumper and peaked cap and reads out a security announcement. Mr Security Guard confesses that he likes the Job because he can watch 12 tellies at once. tvlunnery is always good at rifting on art. history. women and politics from a twisted perspective — how does he get from Morrissey to Francrs Fukuyama in one simple step? — and pays his dues to the recently dead Malcolm Hardee by reviving the alternative comedy pioneer's marvellous anecdote about stealing Freddie Mercury's 40th birthday cake. (Robin Lee) I The Stand, 558 7272. until 29 Aug (not 75), 4pm, [6—88 (YB—£77).
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t 1 18 Aug 200:") THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 31