2011 Edinburgh Fringe
Lee Camp review
The Edinburgh Fringe, like a muddy football pitch, is a great leveller. You may think you're a big fish back home, but get saddled with an 11:45pm slot in the rather sedate and bijou Stand 4 and you're best advised to leave your ego at the door. "Welcome to my arena tour," smiles Lee Camp, having just walked in to a crowd numbering less than 10. Who says Americans don't do irony?
It is, as he readily admits, a bit late to be listening to stuff about politics, and Camp's schtick is hardly a ray of sunshine to see you off to bed with, more a relentless attack on the figures who've been running his nation (into the ground). The poster photo is a bit misleading, it turns out, as it suggests that Camp might be the sort of half-crazed force of nature who would shock you back to full attention despite the hour.
In fact he's a thoroughly reasonable, fairly chilled-out kind of chap who makes many fine points about US and global politics, without ever really causing any uproar in the room. He may have a foot on the (empty) front row seats like a rock star does on the monitors, but clearly misses the whoops and cheers that probably greet his diatribes back home: here it's all polite chuckles (as opposed to Polite Chuckles, who was the world's dullest clown).
There are also several films, though, not all of which are super-thrilling but the final, Fox News-related one is a doozy. Don't nod off before that comes on.
Lee Camp Is: Yet Another American Mistake listing
