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drinks Monday 3 November 08
THE FREE BEER SHOW
Verdict: Late-night showcase of Fringe stand-ups
Edinburgh - Gilded Balloon Teviot - August 02
Paddy Luscombe is the man charged with hosting Gilded Balloon Teviot's round-midnight heavy drinking / stand-up session.
Every night, punters are handed a free bottle of beer with their tickets, and recline comfortably to watch up to 5 top comedy acts from the
fringe.
Tonight, it's 3, including host Andy Zaltzman (appearing at Pleasance Over The Road).
Zaltzman's an easy-going compere, and with a fairly pissed audience tonight, he narrates an encounter between a time-travelling Queen Victoria
and a 2002 barman. It's a new take on Queen Vic, who's certainly not taking any socialist backchat, and holds her own (or possibly the
Prince Regent's) with regal aplomb. Fans of Zaltzman will recognise this funny routine, never exactly the same, and tonight closing at 5
minutes, some way short of Zaltzman's record of 7 minutes 30 seconds.
He's straight into an instruction course for would-be hecklers, a pastel-green shirt setting off his wild mass of orange hair to perfection.
'Art Garfunkel? Very original sir'. He greets the audience individually, congratulating Alec on sitting in the seat nearest the bar - fine
practical planning. There's a 2 minute amnesty on heckling, during which Zaltzman bans himself from pungent put-downs. Silence. In the
end he has to give examples of correct heckles: 'You're shit', 'Get a haircut'. Eventually he elicits 'Has your mum stopped ironing your
shirts?' but rejects it - it's a question rather than a heckle. He suggests 'Draw attention to the low quality of my appearance'.
'Ronald McDonald? Good, you're catching on.'
Shazia Mirza (appearing tonight only) inherits the hecklers, now fully woken up from their boozy reverie. 'I don't encourage heckling
unless I'm shit,' silences most of them. Mirza is a stand-up and journalist, and writes among other things a newspaper column commenting on
current affairs. Her stage clothes underline a look of austerity - black jeans, sweater and head-covering - which matches the stare she gives the audience,
and neatly underlines her comedy style.
Her straight-faced look conceals a rich seam of dead-pan humour. Much of it is about being a Muslim in Britain: 'My Dad let me out (tonight), he
thinks this is a library. Any Muslims here? No? Good.' In a brief and very funny set, Mirza starts with her perception of aspects of Asian women
- greasy hair, facial hair, wearing gloves for shoplifting, being felt-up on the pilgrimage to Mecca. She's quickly on to other topics: Relationships: 'All men are pigs.
('Especially you sir', to a heckler). Unfortunately I can't eat pork.' Women in Saudia Arabia: 'Muslim women are not allowed to drive cars: they
can't see where they're going.' She covers her teaching career (brief, for the reasons she describes), weddings, neighbours, English friends, and graffiti:
'As a child I saw graffiti: "Paki go home". It was Mum telling me it was time for dinner.' She delivers some excellently tasteless 11 September jokes, and finishes - all too quickly.
Craig Campbell (appearing at The Tron / Velvet Laughter Master Series / only 21-26 August 02) strolls on. He's a huge man with huge
hair, and an enormous beard. A khaki shirt and chinos complement the look of an outward-bound adventurer, which is what he was - as a member
of the Canadian Kayak team for 2 years. There's no question of heckling here: this is a man who could wipe away small humans with a
sweep of his hand - fortunately he's amiable.
Very amiable indeed. He makes friends with the audience effortlessly, and tells the story of the Campbells slaughtering the MacDonalds, resulting in a distrust that's still remembered. He's at pains therefore to emphasise he's a Canadian Campbell. In a few hilarious minutes he travels neatly through what the Scots, English, Welsh, and Canadians think about each other, before arriving at his favourite English expression: 'I'm not bothered.'
'We're the land of the bothered' he explains, on behalf of North America generally. They bother if they get the wrong pizza topping. The English attitude, by contrast, is just 'Let's eat'. He also likes 'At the end of the day', and the combination of the two. His delightful set covers a ramble at leisurely pace through living in Edinburgh, warm pies, girlfriends, the death of his goldfish Squirty, nicknames, stereotypes, and the non-use in Canada of the insult 'Moose-Fucker'
(because they know the size of a moose).
Andy Zaltzman comes back on to finish with a couple of excellent jokes, and it's over.
Paddy Luscombe uses his startlingly large set of contacts to put together excellent performers in interesting combinations. He's been booking acts since schooldays in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, starting at 14 (going to the same school as Radiohead was handy for band contacts). The idea of The Free Beer Show came to him in The Turf Tavern, Oxford, and follows his production for Edinburgh 01 of the comedy play 'How to Make Friends and Irritate People'.
He's off to LIPA in October 02 to study Arts Theatre Management.
Sound and lights - Alex Campbell. Assistant producer - Josh Sassanow. Producer - Paddy Luscombe.
END
John Park
reviewed Thursday 22 August 02 / Gilded Balloon Teviot
related topic - our review of Andy Zaltzman
for profiles of Andy Zaltzman, Shazia Mirza, Craig Campbell -
search Chortle - UK Comedy Guide
Craig Campbell is also Ed The Sock
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
