The first truly laugh-out-loud-funny show I have seen at The Fringe, The Big Value Comedy Show is definitely worth the ticket price. Hilarious performances from Dane Baptiste, Darren Walsh and Scott Bennett are introduced by compere Pete Otway, who warms the audience up brilliantly and creates a great atmosphere before the first act has come on stage. There are different lineups for the Big Value Comedy Shows, which take place at different times on different days, but I’m very glad I saw this one.
Dane Baptiste is the first act to come on and he’s very confident on stage, jumping straight in with what it feels like to be black in Scotland: ‘I feel like a coco pop in a bowl of rice crispies.’ He jokes about white middle-class colleagues running marathons, claiming to be infuriated because ‘when me and my mates do that it’s called a riot’. He makes some serious points as well, however. He finds the fact that the black character in Top Gun is called ‘Sundown’ offensive, and, without black influence, the music we’re currently producing would just sound like Eurovision. Baptiste leaves the audience on a high, receiving great applause.
The wackiest act of the night by far is Darren Walsh. His set consists of super snappy word play and whilst a lot of his punchlines aren’t particularly funny, they are delivered in such quick succession that it is entertaining. He flies through topics ranging from censorship to vegetables, even stopping to shout along to his song ‘Where’s my parsnip?’ Using cue cards, he becomes more and more absurd, performing raps and literally sticking his head in the middle of a drawing of a sink to express how ‘in sync’ he really is. There are one too many random Nazi jokes, but Walsh does make us laugh and his increasingly strong Northern Irish accent in his phone banking joke is just spot on.
Better, though, is Scott Bennett, who manages to keep us in hysterics even though he begins his set by talking about make-believe Latin names for plants. Bennett is naturally hilarious and it seems impossible for the audience not to relate to him. His observations regarding supermarket etiquette definitely strike a chord, as does his story about his dad’s Sunday carvery challenge, entailing sneaking Yorkshire puddings under a plate to fit in more food and using mashed potato to forge mountains of food together. He lets us know that we can tweet him our own carvery efforts before ending on a very valid point: ‘How much of a bellend do you have to be before your car’s got eyelashes?’. Down to earth with an effortless stage presence, Bennett is the highlight of a great evening which far exceeded my expectations.
