Neil Delamere - Bookmarks, Assembly Rooms Star rating: ***** Gifted of gab and with firmly controlled flights of fancy, Neil Delamere is ready to climb the heights scaled by his compatriots Ed and Jason Byrne. That is the next bookmark in his life taken care of.
Neil Delamere - Bookmarks, Assembly Rooms
Star rating: *****
Gifted of gab and with firmly controlled flights of fancy, Neil Delamere is ready to climb the heights scaled by his compatriots Ed and Jason Byrne. That is the next bookmark in his life taken care of.
The loose device for this new show is to look back over the major personal events thus far. In other words, the autobiographical stuff of which much comedy is made.
With a hefty contingent from Northern Ireland howling the place down, the boy from the south was having a field day, and did not shrink from back referencing "The Troubles" as it suited his comic train of thought.
He is extremely adept at extracting the humour out of relationships in general, and sex in particular.
The tale of losing his virginity, almost literally, on a sofa bed is grab your guts funny, from trying to live the lyrics of Lou Reed's song Perfect Day to the car alarm that plays the chimes of an ice cream van.
Delamere uses his crowd to bounce off like a wrestler working the ropes, coming back to pin yet another wry punchline to the floor.He may look unassuming and nondescript, but this is one mean, lean, comedy killing machine.
Until August 30.
Shirley & Shirley - The Shirley & Shirley Show, Belly Dancer Underbelly
Star rating: ****
What you need to know about Shirley is that she is skyscraper tall, and that the other Shirley does a more than passable impression of Jennifer Anniston and Smack the Pony's Sarah Alexander.
That TV show is surely the direction to which this talented pair must aspire, with a style that is slick and acutely aware of how to exploit the absurd.
There are characters that hit the mark with precision - the French aesthetic advisor is wickedly cynical and scantily clad - and scenarios cleverly conceived.
Creating an Asian version of the hit Abba musical and film called Mama Mumbai is hotter than an extreme curry - vindaloo aahahh to the tune of Knowing Me Knowing You.
The X Factor parody could have been sharper, but the contestant was so splendidly hapless the Cowell cut-ups and Louis "120%" Walsh samples were an unfortunate reminder that the nightmare will be upon us all too soon.
Lahndahn cliché characters are a speciality, with their silver puffa jacketed snappy and rappy Ali(son) G types, and dodgy Cockney Carol with her entertainment services for "all Caucasian occasions" hinting at a darker side of their humour yet to be fully explored. These girls are going all the way.
Until August 30.
Dixie's Tupperware Party, Assembly Rooms
Star rating: ****
Think of Dixie as Pam Ann's long lost cousin from the American Deep South, but unlike the campest cabin crew member of them all, her feet are kept firmly on the ground by Tupperware.
She struts about the stage like Foghorn Leghorn in a gingham frock, specialising in the cartoon rooster's "I said, I said, I said," style repetition, a dramatic device used to great effect.
Catalogues distributed to the audience, Dixie proceeds to demonstrate her wares, while providing a brief but informative insight into the lives of the people who have brought this wonder of plastic storage devices into our lives.
The trailer trash innuendo is nicely pitched on the boundaries of decency, the audience interaction is intense without being invasive and pathos improbably unleashed when she opens up a catalogue and points out product number 428, her Pick-A-Deli.
More of a celebration of the working class than a mockery, Dixie has the charming menace of a Dick Emery character with better legs, and an incredibly funny southern slur rather than a drawl (her pronunciation of the word barrier was painfully funny).
As comedy characters go, she has a bit more mileage in Tupperware yet, although hopefully she can come up with more satisfactory stain solutions.
Until August 31.
