2010 Edinburgh Fringe
Kevin Eldon review
My editor's going to hate me for this, but if you want an honest critique of Edinburgh's comedy offerings, I reckon your best bet is to skip the review sites and head straight to Kevin Eldon is Titting About at the Stand.
Hyperactively clever, Eldon whisks his way through a deconstruction of comedy, picking apart its exquisite corpse genre by genre. The observational, the experimental, the cruel - nothing escapes his manic, inside-out analysis. OK, at this point it might be sounding a bit clever-clever, but there's nothing smart-arse about Eldon. In fact he's quite self-effacing. Towards the start of the show he lurches about, yelling 'look I'm pretending to be someone else', mocking the character-centred comedy he's best known for.
It all works because he knows what he's talking about. As every comedy geek and their granny knows, Eldon's been on the comedy circuit since the early 90s and has built up a reputation as a brilliant comedy actor, having contributed to the likes of Big Train and worked with everyone from Stewart Lee to Bill Bailey.
Before the show I'm ashamed to say I was expecting a passable routine buoyed along by the audience's goodwill towards a well-respected actor. But instead Eldon proves unrelentingly funny and - more importantly perhaps - interesting. He flits in and out of character like a man possessed by a queue of impatient ghosts. Old favourite, poet Paul Hamilton kicks off proceedings with puns and naff political jokes and along the way we come across a rapping pension salesman and angry French punk rocker. Even when being 'himself' he's constantly shifting voice and persona.
Elaborate word play receives bullet train delivery and the laughs are almost constant. At the end of it all, after the onslaught of energy, characters, jokes and ideas you're left feeling a bit exhausted. And if that's how the audience is feeling, then Eldon must be knackered.
A million stars.
Kevin Eldon is Titting About listing