3

	Underbelly, Bristo Square (venue website) Comedy 1-13, 15-26 Aug, 1:30pm-2:30pm Reviewed by Andy Frain
Recommended for age 14+ only.

Xenophobic fruit doing the conga, a ‘Hypocrisy Haddock’ and a homophobic duck. If none of these sound even remotely amusing to you, there’s not much point reading on, as Gareth Morinan’s show only gets weirder from there onwards. Fortunately, for those that do feel intrigued, there is more than enough off-the-wall material here to satisfy – albeit with a few notable faults.

Morian’s show relies heavily on the slides shown on the board next to him, where all the best points of the show can be found, whether they be line graphs, pie charts or just insane doodles.  Particular highlights include a graph showing the link between homeopathy and reality, and a pie chart showing why strangers are safer than your parents. But those are just a two of many first class examples.

Morinan’s delivery is particularly eccentric, and although at times a little rushed, his impressive capability to keep a deadpan face whilst explaining the more bizarre elements of the show is to be applauded. A hilarious opening bit of ‘audience banter’, using a flowchart to formulate his answers is simply brilliant, as is his pitch of a television show to ITV.

However, at times Morinan makes the classic surrealist mistake of confusing something strange with something funny, leaving some potentially entertaining jokes to fall flat due to the simple lack of a punch line. The introduction of characters (played by himself) jars with the rest of the show and doesn’t particularly add much, particularly as they don’t really do anything that Morinan couldn’t do as himself. In addition, a bit less reliance on the screen would make a world of difference, with Morinan’s spoken words not leading me to laugh once for the duration of the show.

These issues stop this show from being all-out hilarious, but there’s enough quality in there to make this an enjoyable voyage through the madness, for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Morinan’s style won’t convince any doubters, but followers of The Mighty Boosh et al will dig this.