Theatre

The Pauly Show

Alan Hindle | Tuesday 30 August, 2011 11:44

Paul F. Taylor, AKA Pauly, has always dreamed of having his own sitcom. His mother, apparently not knowing the damage she was doing to her child, indulged by watching his little shows in the living room, featuring the family dog and all the fruit in the house. She even laughed. Will parents never learn? Today Paul is a lanky, hirsute, goofy, unemployed and unemployable comedian living on canned chuckles in a CGI house (filmed against the “red screen” of the Camden Head curtains) with a rotating cast of friends and dogs, depending on who’s in the audience. On the night I saw the show there were only seven of us in the room and half of us wound up as guest-stars. And that is a criminal shame. (And poor use of math, since that makes for 3 and a half guest stars. Having half a guest on your stage probably is criminal.) The show is brilliant, with a bit of Harry Hill about Taylor. The “plot” is as worthless as you could hope for, and while Taylor’s jokes are excellent, it’s better when he gets them wrong, or they don’t get a laugh and he has to scramble to find it elsewhere. He does seem to exhaust himself, petering out towards the end, suffering from nipple-sweats and occasional desperate muggings. But I loved the show and hopefully he’ll see fuller rooms for future shows. Where the hell is everybody? At home, watching My Family.

Camden Fringe Festival page

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