Three foreigners, three utterly different stand up shows, all laugh like a maniac brilliant. Mess Around, Adam Hills' new show where material is only an unnecessary backup to hoofcuff audience interaction, offers convincing proof that he is one of the most assured comics at the fringe. Never too concerned about where the next laugh is coming from Adam works the room like an expert, joking with his sign language interpreter and a talented ten year old called Lenny, who may find himself behind a microphone in the lights before too long. With padding from excellent anecdotes about appearing with Gaga and Prince Philip at the royal variety and a heroic pizza salesman the lulls never last long. While there is not necessarily a wider point to this show, no overarching message, Adam's feelgood brand leaves a nice glow on the brain. This is a good guy, doing good comedy. Many fans of more disconcerting joke prejudice irony have been enjoying the excellent german humour series with Otto Kuhnle for several years, but this year Henning Wehn returns without his help to do his first solo fringe show, My Struggle. Ostensibly about how tough it is to make it on the circuit as a german, this show suffers in many ways from the perennial fringe sin of cobbling together the year's material to make a show without a coherent narrative. Nevertheless bits about sectarianism and heroes in uniform betray the sharp and controversial jokewriter who lurks not too far beneath the stereotypical exterior. All in all, newcomers will find something well worth watching, but to his long-term fans( among whom I include myself), this assured sort-of-debut comes more as a relief than an exhilarating masterpiece.(I should also mention that you might, in a bizarre touch, win a trip to munich courtesy of the german tourist board). Hans Teeuwen is many things to many- a radical genius to most reviewers, a hero of free speech to followers in holland and to the audience at latitude, a talentless misogynist. This year's show, Smooth and Painful, is a reworking of last years, split roughly evenly between old and new material. As such, he conveys a not entirely endearing indifference to the opinion of his audience, who as usual either piss themselves or walk out. For me there is no doubt that Hans Teeuwen is a visionary, who makes you laugh in ways no other comedian has quite grasped, but this show is nevertheless a dissappointment, a lacklustre effort from one of our finest living comedians. Disturbing, discordant, offbeat sets about religion or the fairytale forest are still brilliant, but repeated, and those who have seen him before will know that he can do so, oh so much better than the new material in this hour. Still a must see for anyone who has never seen him before, and although no Hans Teeuwen fan will lose the faith after this there is something inadequate, something wrong.
Ratings
Mess Around 4*
My Struggle 3*
Smooth and Painful 4*
Links
http://www.adamhills.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YTbONFlQi4 - Henning Wehn on the Comedy Vehicle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvOS9vsccJs - Hans Teeuwen(in dutch) making a speech for Theo Van gogh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrGSbGhKYBs - Getting booed off at Latitude
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