Comedy
Gags to go
Renata Rubnikowicz
Around the corner from Edinburgh's new Harvey Nichols a small crowd watches two men with metal pails on their heads play harmonica in the rain. It's August. It can only be the Fringe. In his orange bucket and velvet robes, Simon Munnery (with his support act Andrew Bailey) might look like a Ned Kelly brainwashed by the Bhagwan Rajneesh, but his one-liners — 'If a million monkeys were given a million typewriters, that would be the Internet, surely?' — punch through his 21st-century Dadaist flummery.
A few minutes' walk away at the Assembly Rooms. Jimeoin, an Irishman living in Australia, entertains under the same Fringe umbrella with an assured act that could have come from Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Nothing too local, nothing rude, nothing nasty. He has the audience eating out of his hand. With Fringe tickets hitting the £10 an hour mark at the main venues, it's easy to understand the attraction of such a reliable comedy product. Maybe the same impulse explains the success of the exceptionally good Men in Coats — see page 37.
But surely the Fringe should be about edge? Take risks after 11 September? Former Perrier winner Rich Hall begins by apologising — 'I'm American and I'm sorry for everything' — and then tries to demonstrate, often just by quoting a president who's capable of saying, 'The number three priority of my campaign is putting education first', what his country is about. Hall and his partner Dave Wilmot are far from slick but their show has moments of cleverness and wit. And they allow for the unexpected. On the night I saw them, Boothby Graffoe, a comedian who like Hall is prepared to teeter hilariously on the edge of failure, dashed on as an uninvited character. Was he a sheikh incompetently turbaned with a cricket sweater? Or Osama bin Laden in the last place anyone would look for him? None of us, including Hall, knew, hut it worked; we laughed.
Beside this, America's Will Durst, though polished, sounds tired and cynical. Costumed in Kabul, Kit and the Widow naughtily bill themselves as al Qa'eda's answer to Dame Vera Lynn and are as effervescent and topical as always. Ben Willbond, of last year's faux French rappers Priorite a Gauche, makes a bid for the 6.30 p.m. Radio Four 'comedy' slot with his very funny play Spooks, featuring singing suicide bombers, and deserves to succeed. Sequinned cowgirl drag act Tina C's excellent country music response to 11 September has fun at the expense of American absurdities such as 'patriotic bathroom stationery' patterned with the stars and stripes.
This year's big surprise has been the metamorphosis of Omid Djalili. Having made a career as a cuddly belly dancer and Brian Blessed impersonator, Djalili returns with a blistering hour of cleverly nuanced political comedy. He still sweetens his more hitter lines by following them with a little shimmy, and all the voices — Iranian, Afghani/Geordie, middle-class luvvie, as well as, of course, the Brian that roars — appear, but now he is angry. As a Londoner from a Middle Eastern family his insights are different and personal but never preachy and he carries his audience with him on huge waves of laughter. Djalili's moment as a comedian has come and he has risen coruscatingly to the challenge. Where Djalili finds the humour in global tragedy, personal disasters are inspiring a wave of disparate comedians. Among them is long-standing success Andre Vincent, who may have alienated potential audiences by building a show around his operation for cancer, but caused those who did turn up to laugh unreservedly. The young and beautiful Francesca Martinez, who makes her cerebral palsy seem like just another one of the pains of growing up, is a comedic star in the ascendant, while the personable Steve Day's Deaf in the Afternoon has a way to go before he can match her but is already well worth watching. Another charmer, and one you should go out of your way to see, is Australian Adam Hills, born lacking a foot, but blessed with wit, intelligence, originality and good looks. Whole audiences fall head over heels in love with him.
No one falls for Nottingham's Daniel Kitson, but then he trades on his unloveliness. Although he's ditched the promising newcomer label along with his wispy beard, he still has a lisp, a stutter, the giggle of a serial killer and the singing voice of a Japanese kitty. He says he's a sad 25-yearold who prefers Scrabble to drink, drugs and clubs but at least he can console himself with the knowledge that as a comedian he's definitely made it.
Unusually, my favourite show this year came from America. The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett as Found in an Envelope (Partially Burned) in a Dustbin in Paris Labeled 'Never to be Performed. Never. Ever. EVER! Or I'll Sue! I'LL SUE FROM THE GRAVE!!!' was not only the longest title on the Fringe, it did exactly what it said it would do on the programme. Even those not in the habit of confronting the existential void with Sam the Smiler hooted at 'Happy Happy Bunny Visits Sad Sad Owl' and its closing scene of the fluffy toy rabbit alone, in a dustbin, in a blasted landscape. Young comedians attempting to work one of the Gilded Balloon's dripping cave venues will know how that feels.
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