Theatre

1 Mighty Craic Comedy Hour

John Underwood | Monday 8 August, 2011 12:59

For some reason, 1 Mighty Craic’s resident MC Maddy Nebraska was replaced by Iszi Lawrence at the performance I attended. Still, I doubt anyone minded; Lawrence’s fifteen minute set cherrypicked some of the highlights from her hour-long show, and her offbeat audience interaction was much more successful than on her own opening night. It’s just as well she did the rounds, because headliner Henry Ginsberg is fundamentally disinterested in interacting with the audience – his introverted and frequently surreal set deals almost exclusively with the peculiarities of his own life, but nobody’s complaining. From his first glum observation (that he’d recently had to shave his beard off because a tramp saluted him on the Underground) Ginsberg effortlessly carries the audience on a journey of Eeyoresque gloominess, relating his childhood fear that his PE teacher was going to shit on his bed and trying to reassure himself that having a long tongue makes up for also having a small penis.

There aren’t many comedians who are happy to have a full and frank discussion about the
comments they’ve noticed under a YouPorn video, but Ginsberg appears to have sunk into such a pit of despair that none of it matters any more. Probably my favourite miserable git since Dylan Moran.

Camden Fringe festival page

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