David Hasselhoff has a large and committed international following: Pleasance Grand was sold out on his opening night and at almost £20 a ticket, this is one of the more expensive shows at the Fringe.
The Hoff knows how to entertain a crowd: they absolutely loved his performance and it was admittedly unforgettable. The performance consisted of Hasselhoff singing a few of his songs (badly, with autocue), talking about his life and showing scenes from Baywatch. It was all a bit of a mess. He always had what seemed to be his producer on stage with him, who sat behind a computer, controlling the projector. This projector showed basic and dated computer animations like the sea moving back and forth, recalling simple introductions to Powerpoint rather than an expensive stage show.
During the unnecessarily long scene changes, the audience was shown low-quality clips of Baywatch. This felt like a rip-off: in total, the Hoff couldn’t have been on stage for much more than forty minutes. Hasselhoff may be able to run on the beach in slow motion but he cannot sing. As he has just finished a run of Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway in the leading dual-role, he decided to treat us to a song from that, but not one of Jekyll or Hyde’s. Instead he chose to sing ‘Someone Like You’, a song for the female voice and a fundamentally flawed choice for a 60 year-old man. He also forgot the words.
From an entertainment point of view this show hit its mark. When Hasselhoff sang his own songs, such as ‘Jump In My Car’, the audience was loving it. The highlight was Hoff’s failure to do up a kilt: for his final piece, he came out in the kilt holding it on with one hand. Lovers of David Hasselhoff should jump in, but for others this should be avoided.
