Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

Norway’s Viggo Venn must be the only comedian whose tax return includes a significant deduction for cucumbers. The comic is obsessed with them, incredulous that something that’s 95 per cent water can still be a solid, prompting a ridiculous amount of stupid visual gags that just keep coming.

His commitment to the joke, long after it first stopped being funny, eventually gives it a second lease of life. Though to be frank, than wanes too after a while – even if Venn’s enthusiasm never does.

The shtick of Pepito – the name of his clownish alter-ego as well as this show – is that he treats the audience as toddlers, needing to be constantly entertained with silly games and props. He’ll put on silly teeth, or keep on playing the same sound loop with different variations (toddlers love repetition) or get us to try to join in with his silly mime games

One guy tonight was just not having any of it, stubbornly refusing to take part in the simplest audience interaction - miming hitting a ping-pong ball back to the stage – even if it only drew more attention to himself. It takes quite some effort to be that determined not to engage, despite Venn deploying all his considerable puppydog charms to get him involved. 

Kudos, on the other hand, to Frank, who certainly rose to the occasion of providing sound effects for the preposterous tale of Pepito heading to space to recover a lost ball, taking his snowman friend with him. As you might tell from that plot summary, plotting isn’t Venn’s strong suit.

Pepipto is an hour that’s both deliberately and accidentally slapdash, though some apparent snafus segue into gags suggesting things aren’t quite as chaotic as he is making out. But it’s certainly not as tight as high-impact as his double act with Zach Zucker, tonight making a surprise guest appearance int he audience.

It is, on paper, a fairly flimsy show, and there aren’t quite enough fresh ideas to go around,  making recurring gags sometimes seem like padding.

Yet Venn’s sweet-natured charm, and ability to cajole (almost) everyone into his universe of daft play ensures Pepito’s a guaranteed feelgood show, allowing you to forget the seriousness of the real world outside for 50 minutes or so. And that’s a noble enough achievement.

Review date: 5 Apr 2018
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett