Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

After taking his sweet time to make a slightly stiff entrance in a tight tuxedo, Ikechukwu Ufomadu explains, in the style of a JFK speech, what words he’ll be using today.

This sets the tone for a truly unusual, at times sublime, hour in which he deploys oratory flourishes to deliver some deliciously incongruous material. At times it’s as if a theatrical genius has been set an improv challenge to present linguistic doodles in the manner of a political leader who’s explaining why his nation can, in fact, overcome its current crises. Or an old-school entertainer mashed up with someone presenting a corporate seminar, accompanied by some-easy listening music.

New Yorker Ufomadu, who asks us whether he’s pronouncing his own name correctly, makes a virtue of his love of enunciation, applying it cleverly in unexpected places throughout the show.

He has some beautifully original ideas about reversing the roles of performer and audience. True to form, he develops and extends these silly notions, at times making them last a tad longer than one imagines he might (or perhaps should). There’s so much confidence here. So much wonderful strangeness. We’re in his world and he’s not going to compromise.

There are periods during which some of the punters can barely breathe, while others are baffled. Why, in a comedy show, he chooses to read the opening passage from Moby Dick or recite a gripping Hamlet soliloquy, only he knows, but you could never accuse him of being average.

About 70 per cent of this show is outstanding, an otherworldly experience even, but there are too many moments when we feel Ufomadu's commitment to the bit could be reined back a bit in favour of brevity. You won’t see anything else like this.

Review date: 7 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Ashley Davies
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard