Review of some of the odder comedy acts at the festival

Billed as Komedia’s Brighton Fringe Comedy Showcase, this was actually the brainchild of alternative comic Luke Rollason to champion the freaks and the weirdos he likes, many of them though a bursary he set up to help like-minded (or like-out-of-their-minded) performers.

As a physical comic he probably wouldn’t immediately be considered an ideal MC. His background is in clowning and making the audience feel uncertain. But his silly prop comedy and expressive face – Mr Bean eyebrows and all – are charming in their childlike simplicity and endear him to the room. He has plenty of daft sight gags - those with household objects evoking Spencer Jones – while his peculiarities set the oddball tone for the night.

First up was his pal Christian Blighty in the guise of a Byronic romantic poet, dismissing the audience as ugly, low-class scum before being hit by Cupid’s arrow and falling for several of them. It’s a winning caricature, and while the set isn’t hilarious, it evokes a spirit of play that it’s easy to go along with.

More impenetrable was Hannah Winter – whose full show Snowflake we reviewed earlier in the Fringe. She performed a routine from it, which leans heavily into performance art as she asks a punter to ‘hold space’ with the power of mime. A very slow set-up elicited only mild, sporadic titters barely louder than the hum of the air conditioning, while much of the subsequent interaction was lost as no one could see how the unlucky audience participant reacted to Winter’s commands.

Aruhan Galieva, who goes by the name Roo, is a half-Kazakhstani intersectional climate change activist who leans hard into her geekiness, with a routine dedicated to the much-overlooked brilliance of bats, literally singing their praises. It might be a hard cause to get behind post-Covid, but she’s endearing with her obsession, and the obscurity of her passion, and its intensity, is the joke in itself.

Speaking of nerdy, Ted Hill sets out his intention to talk about his pet topics: American presidents and the Nato phonetic alphabet. True to his word, he shares some words of wisdom previous Potuses (Potii?) probably didn’t say, and rewrites the ‘A for alpha’ code of the latter to make it more challenging. It’s as niche, hare-brained and off-the-wall as it sounds, making him an audience favourite.

Palestinian comic Sami Abu Wardeh whips up the energy, dancing on to the stage while pounding, his hand drums. Beyond the relentless upbeat delivery  and jaunty chants lie some pointed gags about Little Englander Britishness and the microracisms he encounters. But he definitely keeps it light and joyful.

Freddie Hayes performs stand-up as a potato. That may be all you need to know. It’s a sight to behold and she ekes the expected puns out of the situation. But the writing’s a little half-baked  – for want of a better term – and doesn’t push the set beyond the meaningless absurdity that strong image presents, despite an engaging twinkle to her performance.

Sara Segovia says she’s from Spain, but seems like she’s from another planet… an idea she embraces by performing as the most sweet-natured alien invader you’re ever likely to encounter. She brings a giddy glee to her naive performance, clambering into the crowd to pilfer treasures or zap puny humans with her toy gun. She gives new meaning to UFO: unusual, funny oddball.

Then things take a deeper dive into eccentricity for the finale, thanks to spooky deadpan ventriloquist Lachlan Werner, a white-faced, almost mute choirboy, who communicates almost entirely via Brew, his waspish witch puppet, who bullies even him. ‘Tell them how shy you are,’ she demands of her petrified human sidekick. Technically skilled, Werner strikes a distinctive figure, and even if he wasn’t the first to have the idea that lies at the heart of his short set piece, it’s a winningly silly image, well-executed.

Indeed the whole showcase has been a parade of winningly silly images as the comics and clowns play around with what can be done on stage in the name of comedy.

Review date: 2 Jun 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton Komedia