60% of emails sent are spam, and James Veitch turns this cyber curse into a comic blessing. Using a unique blend of storytelling, stand-up and slide show presentation, he shows us the inventive ways in which he has beaten email scammers at their own game.
The inherently funny content is made still more entertaining by his excellent delivery.
Veitch’s comedy is so compelling because it presents a real-life case of a classic comic trope: two characters both pretending to be someone else in an attempt to trick the other. Veitch plays along with the scammers’ narratives to make them believe that he is close to buying into their scams, and uses this incentive to drag them along his own ridiculously convoluted narratives. Enacting the revenge of all those who have been scammed, Veitch has scammers talking in ridiculous codes, telling him how he performed in a non-existent bed, and saying how they remembered a non-existent romantic holiday.
The inherently funny content is made still more entertaining by his excellent delivery. His comic timing is impeccable, and particularly impressive given that he synthesises his words with his visual presentation. Veitch presents all of his emailing antics on a screen as he talks his audience through them, and has split up his emails so that they appear in sections to enhance their comic effect in their retelling. This comedy buzzes with intelligence, from its intricate running jokes to its startlingly creative use of Photoshop.
This delightfully nerdy comedy is both innovative and enjoyable, and you won’t see anything quite like it. Veitch is most definitely one to watch.
