You know you’re in for a good night when the show hasn’t even started and Stamptown’s Dylan Woodley has the crowd raring to go with an electric pre-show roller-skating display. Whipping the audience into a frenzy is comedian Zach Zucker’s electric alter-ego Jack Tucker, who introduces Stamptown’s first act tumbling onstage festooned in a brassiere and dripping with sleaze. His comedy is predominated by lightning-quick riffs, sky-high production value and a masterful domination of the gaping stage space in this 750-capacity venue. Much of his magnetism stems from flirting with the power dynamics between audience and performer - something of which Tucker is all too aware, as he compels his audience to chant, whoop, get up out of their seats, and even thrice sing the
For a madcap rocket-ride through comedy and circus, where else but Stamptown?
Across the show’s ambitious one-and-a-half-hour run time the crowd is treated to the nail-biting thrills of Jacqueline Furey’s sword-swallowing, Zaki Musa’s pole acrobatics and Marshall Arkley’s fire-breathing whip-trick extravaganza, the brazen and creative nudity of which is one of many surprising and spectacular elements of the evening. Also with Huge Davies’ darkly comic synth melodies and Martin Urbano’s light-footed (if a little knotty) stand-up set, to name just a few of the acts, Stamptown’s frenzy crashes into its audience in wave upon wave. Thrown into the mix are kooky characters that come and go intermittently, such as Steffen Hånes’s cartoonish vampire parody, and Nick Kocher and Demi Adejuyigbe’s packed conspicuously into a trench coat like naughty little kids.
Not once does Tucker drop the ball. More than eager to riff off his audience from the ‘United Kinglish’, he is all too keen to bring us directly into the crosshairs of the night. Whilst this ensures there is never a dull moment, Tucker’s bombast and brazen provocation is occasionally a tough act to follow, even as the show’s spectacular sound and light medley never lets up throughout. Still, for a madcap rocket-ride through some of the craziest that comedy and circus has to offer, it’s hard to see where else you’d call but Stamptown.
