Review by Steve Bennett

It can be refreshing to see a real WTF? act on the circuit, an abstract throwback to the now largely forgotten alternative roots of the modern circuit.

Sadly, cabaret absurdist Carlo Jacucci is not one of these performers. His indulgent, impenetrable and joyless Brighton Fringe show is simply unwatchable. I could endure only half an hour, and even then out of a sense of professional duty; compelled by the principle that I shouldn’t review a show I haven’t seen from start to finish. But I’m making an exception here only so I can warn others… yet I had to escape while I still retained some will to live.

He jabbers away, sometimes in English, sometimes in some nonsensical Euro hybrid as he mimes various vaguely surreal scenes, but with no deftness or emotion. In his opening scene he appears, with marginally less stage presence than the mic stand, in a leather jacket open to the waist, gyrating lasciviously, some fruit in a string bag hanging between his legs representing his cojones. And this is a high point.

In one scene he repeatedly acts out the buying of a loaf of bread, each time asking the audience of six: ‘What am I doing?’ A valid question, which should really also include the words ‘the fuck’. And when someone tries to end the awkward misery with an answer on the fourth or fifth time of asking, he makes them feel foolish. Then he does the same again, playing cowboys and Indians; then again as a suicide bomber. It’s agonising for all concerned.

He acts out the temptation of Eve, voicing a sock-puppet serpent with barely coherent lines like: ‘Y va? Hmmm. Hey hey. It’s… go on. Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh nyeh. Look.’ That’s the sort of intelligent, witty dialogue you can expect.

Later he sits a stuffed duck down, pretends it’s a lawyer called Marco and holds a conversation. Delightfully child-like, you might think? No – an actual child in play wouldn’t have the self-consciousness and self-indulgence that cripples every moment of this irredeemably embarrassing and strangely charmless performance. Avoid.

Review date: 13 May 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett