If you want to see a show with a highly intelligent, quick-witted comedy improv rapper in which all his people from the front to the back nod, look no further than Chris Turner: Rap God.
Every potential to become a household name; why see a king, when you can see a God?
Chris Turner is known as one of the hardest working Fringe performers, who could previously be seen in no fewer than four shows every day. One of entertainment’s bigger pandemic success stories, he returns to the Edinburgh this year, fresh from his debut appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In Rap God, Turner treats his audience to his traditional melange of routines with very clever puns, pre-written and improvised comedy rap songs.
His opening freestyle features a Go Pro that streams the audience’s faces to the screen while he walks around inventing raps based on what he sees – it’s an incredible start with carefully personalised lyrics about the crowd which nobody could take offence at.
The middle of the show doesn’t quite match the high standards established at the outset. The comedy and pre-written raps are all solid but it’s during the improv that Turner is truly in his element, and this year, there’s fewer of these highlights than one might hope for.
Turner is a very likeable performer and constantly demonstrates his intelligence, vast general knowledge and ability to construct truly clever jokes in the spur of the moment with his responses to the audience and freestyle beats. Paradoxically, some of the material is so clever and fast that you often don't have enough time to decode the words, understand and appreciate the reference and still keep up with the comedy before he’s moved on to the next gag or lyric. So, pay attention!
If you like the sound of a challenging comedy show designed for intellectual appreciators (or at least tolerators) of proper phat beats from a performer with every potential to become a household name, why see a king, when you can see a God?
