Tim FitzHigham is a true eccentric and a sucker for a challenge. Among his previous exploits he’s sailed the Channel in a copper bath, navigated the Thames in a paper boat and Morris danced his way from London to Norwich, so it’s hardly surprising that, taking a step back this year, he started to measure himself against history’s other doers of deeds – professional gamblers.Just to clarify here, we’re not talking about anything as humdrum as poker. We’re talking the heroes of gaming. Men such as Thomas ‘Buck’ Whaley who won over one million pounds in today’s money by travelling to Jerusalem and playing squash on the Wailing Wall. And then returned and won another million riding a horse out of a second floor window.This being the case these are pretty weird bets. Can you roll a cheeseboard over three-and-a-half miles in one hundred goes? Can a complete chess novice last more than ten moves against former world champion Nigel Short? Can a man beat a racehorse over a 100 yard dash? FitzHigham takes on all of these and more with a manic enthusiasm that’s positively infectious and he takes a hell of beating doing it, racking up a list of injuries from a broken finger to a fractured toe. But despite performing this show through a haze of prescription painkillers, he never flags once.For any other stand-up, having an inflatable igloo as their venue might not be the best situation, but for FitzHigham the ability to be cheek by jowl with his audience is ideal. Striding back and forth across the stage like a demented Robinson Crusoe, he has the audience in the palm of his hand. Charming, inspirational and mad as a bag of weasels.
