Review by Steve Bennett

With scraggly mane of blond hair, a white suit so flared you could stage Cirque Du Soleil in the bell-bottoms and a rubbery face that was surely salvaged from the dumpster behind the Jim Henson Workshop, Carl-Einar Hackner cuts quite the commanding figure. And then he starts his act…

It’s a relentless onslaught of shambolic magic, discordant music and irresistible physical comedy, all so wonderfully misjudged. Magic wands come flying out of his crotch, props seem to take on dangerous minds of their own, and the stage fills with toilet paper in a frenzy of chaos. There’s barely enough time to catch your breath between the manically mangled tricks, with Hackner valiantly to convey a Vegas glitz, but ends up standing forlornly among the rubble of his crumbled ambition. He’s a Swedish Tömmy Cööper – but far even more inventive than that.

The first half-hour is probably the funniest 30 minutes you could spend at the festival, as even the coldest façade must yield under the blitz of his ingenious stunts and unpredictable gags. Two longer set pieces will stay indelibly in the mind – his learning a trick from ‘teach yourself’ tape despite his uncertain English, and a harmonica interlude that really does give new meaning to the word ‘mouth’ organ. But the pace of the smaller gags – from trying to plug his guitar in, to strikingly original Ikea jokes – is breathtakingly impressive.

He can’t sustain it, however, and the manic energy dissipates for some longer-form sketches in the second half, such as a discussion about how Bob Dylan – pronounced with deliciously corrupted Nordic vowels – spends his days or a couple of audience singalongs, which leave some punters baffled.

After the inventive intensity of the first half, this can only come as an anti-climax, verging on the self-indulgent. It’s funny enough – but we’d come to expect twisted genius. He set the bar too high for himself…

Despite this slump, Hackner is a highly recommended ‘must-see’; a comedic force of nature among a sea of stand-ups unwilling to look this ridiculous for the most noble aim of all – to keep people chuckling with carefree glee.

Review date: 16 Apr 2010
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett