Review by Steve Bennett

Fatel is obsessed with sex. Be it porn, breasts or ‘you girls with your crazy vaginas!’, his conversation never for a moment rises above the belt.

Sex and all its mores is the mainstay of many a comic, of course. But this mild-mannered American employs honesty and modesty, rather than the braggadocio of most laddish stand-ups, to give himself an edge.

On top of that, his morose, monotone, deadpan delivery gives things a creepily sordidy air, exacerbated by his uncomfortable come-ons to a selected audience member.

Yet while the act is solidly reliable, getting laughs of recognition and shock in equal measure, it never really soars, never really stands out as something special.  It doesn’t help that we’ve heard some – but by no means all -  of this before. ‘Men can’t find the clitoris’ jokes are surely past their sell-by date unless it can be done with more style than Fatel musters by calling it the Osama Bin Laden of the female body.

But there’s an impish smile to mitigate against the sleaze, and enough accurate observations and upfront confessions to satisfy many people’s basic instinct: the desire to laugh.

Review date: 19 Jun 2005
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett