Wander around Edinburgh for any length of time and you will find that the Fringe has no shortage of shows with cringeworthy titles. Whilst this three-man stand-up show doesn’t quite fall into that category, its name baffles me. I must be missing something, but the only links I can draw between title and show are tenuous at best: a dark venue; a female audience member in front of me who had pink hair…
Though consistency is not the show’s strongest suit, the visible effort put in by the three men can be commended
The evening begins on a promising note, with Declan Kennedy taking jibes at himself before having the audience ponder over the idea of an ‘Earth 2.0’ – in layman’s terms, an improved version of the world. Kennedy’s performance is generally robust, moving briskly through his opening lines and improvising well when necessary. However, this energy fizzles out when he spends too much time trying to interact with – and at times, simply react to – a not-always-cooperative audience.
Kennedy, Matt Duwell and Victor Preda grapple with socio-political topics ranging from Rachel Dolezal to feminism to David Cameron. However, they have a tendency to thrust their personal views onto the audience – and, in the cases of Duwell and Preda, devolve into the excessively confessional – while yielding little comic profit.
The topics of sex and the resentment of fathers rear their heads in Duwell and Preda’s performances. Unfortunately, these jokes are often tasteless and, at least on the opening night, failed to elicit much laughter from the audience, many of whom left early.
But the show is not without its flashes of of ingenuity. Particularly memorable are Preda’s absurd joke about a snake with two heads, and the early parts of his segment on strange-smelling houses.
Though consistency is not the show’s strongest suit, the visible effort put in by the three men can be commended. More careful planning might eventually allow the separate acts to harmonise without seeming repetitive, and rise above the sum of their parts.
