Review by Steve Bennett

What screams comedy more than ‘German’? How about a German comedy about the machinations of alpha-generating market-neutral hedge funds and collaterised debt obligations.

Well, it looks like the stereotypes have let us down again, as Blow Up provides an entertaining romp through the financial meltdown, set – and why not? – to stirring oompah music. There’s a certain irony that a show about going broke has got so much brass.

Our guide through the credit crunch is Max Klein, a former equity analyst of second-tier insurance portfolios in of the Benelux nations, who came to London to work in the good times because of tax rules ‘a child of three could circumvent’ and a relaxed attitude to City regulation.

He explains what went wrong using a series of oompah-based analogies and corny gags. But it’s not the comedy that makes this show so entertaining, but the music.

There’s nothing sub-prime about the five-piece Oompah Brass, who play not the traditional polkas but reworked versions of pop hits. So when the discussion turns to toxic debts, we get a blast of Britney Spears’s Toxic. You get the idea.

Everything from Kylie to Queen, S Club 7 to AC/DC is covered, and the joke often comes at the moment of realisation of exactly what track has been arranged for brass – and played so expertly. The quintet are friskily mischievous, too, frolicking around in the cheesy spirit of the show, wearing Bavarian outfit and quaffing steins of lager as they do. But then we all need liquidity, as Klein points out.

If it isn’t immediately obvious from the comedy accent, our Teutonic financier is actually as German as Winston Chruchill, bobbies' helmets and warm bear. He is, in fact the creation of stand-up newcomer Charlie Talbot. His script is rather lame, but delivered with playful verve – and in any case, it’s largely irrelevant, merely a device to get from one impressively bizarre arrangement to the next, given that the volume of the band is impossible to sing over, as one rather shambolic number proves.

But really this is a blast – and at just £5 a ticket (or 83p per performer) even the most recession-hit Fringe-goer has little excuse to miss it.

Review date: 18 Aug 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett