Review by Steve Bennett

At best, Jody Kamali’s dressing-up-and-props show is the sort of thing you might improvise to keep a listless seven-year-old nephew entertained. At worst, it’s the sort of amateur show said seven-year-old might put on for you.

He clumsily juggles bottles in the persona of an elite cocktail waiter; he half-heartedly sings in the guise of an operatic tenor who occasionally lapses into pop; he puts in some comedy fangs and clomps around as an ‘I vant to suck your bloooood’ vampire like Twilight never happened.

There’s a slight air of daftness that makes some scenes a shade more amusing – why, for example, has the singer got a parrot on his shoulder? But almost every idea is so underdeveloped to be not worth doing. There’s not one but two crap conjuring tricks with a sheet, and another scene with an incredibly long-set up about a financial guru sniffing something rank in the room for a payoff, which is mildly funny in its absurdity, but certainly isn’t worth the boredom-inducing wait.

Amid this tacky variety-show spoof, Bristolian Anglo-Iranian Kamali has one sketch that suggest what he seems to be aiming at, when he brings all the flamboyant, pseudo-mystical showmanship of a hip conjuror to bear on the act of juggling a couple of disposable plastic bags. It’s a routine he has previously performed at the festival, and he isn’t the first person to do it. but the gap between his intensity and the triviality of the task is certainly funny

Clowing’s becoming hip again with festival crowds, but even with his eighth Fringe in ten years, Kamali struggles to find his inner imp, and instead just arses around with tired characters and a weak sense of timing. No wonder he usually passes through the festival largely unnoticed.

Review date: 4 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Laughing Horse @ Espionage