Monday, August 24, 2009

Matt Kirshen, Jessica Delfino, Tanya O'Debra, Marga Gomez, Mike Amato

Matt Kirshen is immediately likable on stage and off. His show is intelligent comedy, storytelling and jokes, taking the piss out of the wrongheaded desire of Brits to watch people fail, constructed into a solid hour show about self-confidence called, Shorter Than Napoleon. Matt was nice enough to give me a pair of tickets. I had a bad night that night, some talkers in the front seats at my show. And then I was late to pick up Chris, visiting me from London. When I was flyering earlier that day, someone called the image on my flyer (a picture of me naked) "disgusting." He repeated himself several times to get his point across. Nice. I was in need of a good laugh, so thank you Matt for cheering me right up. Hilarious. (Judges: 10!)

Jessica Delfino wants to be famous. There's no question about that. But does she want to be my roommate? I don't know. But she is. Until Wednesday. Then she's taking her lovely ass to the Reading and Leeds festival. Am I jealous? You betcha. Saw her show again this weekend. I love it every time. Don't know all of her songs by heart yet, but I'm getting there. (Judges: 10!)

Tanya O'Debra, formerly of the O'Debra Twins, strikes out on her own here in Edinburgh with an original 40s-era radio whodunnit called "Radio Star." I was worried that I wasn't going to like Tanya's theater piece for a couple of reasons: 1. Cafe Renroc (we're at the same venue) doesn't lend itself well to a theatrical production and 2. I had never seen Tanya perform by herself for such a long time. My fears were totally unfounded. Miss O'Debra's "Radio Star" is fantastic. She performs no less than six distinct voices, controls the sound effects with her laptop as well as a couple of live sound effects (a mini-door that she opens and shuts, and shoes for audible footsteps walking to and away from the action). In the end you remember more the strength of her performance than the plot, but the script is loaded with laugh lines. (Judges: 10!)

Marga Gomez in "All that Gomez" is performing nightly to sold-out crowds. I was lucky to get a seat at her show last night where she races between stand-up bits, storytelling, and one-woman show theatrical bits... all hilarious. She riffs about being in Edinburgh, unafraid to not know where it's going for a bit, sure she'll find her comic footing. Marga is a great performer, and it's easy to watch someone so comfortable on the stage. She tells the story of auditioning for a part as a maid in a Kathleen Turner–directed made for TV movie. Though, Marga never wanted play a made, she did want to meet Kathleen Turner, so she took the audition. Fortunately for us, her Kathleen Turner impression is spot-on. So funny. But my favorite character sketch was her Ti-ti (tia, aunt) who tells little girl Marga that she is a dirty little piggie girl (cochina! cochina! cochina), and when her mother dies, little Marga will be all Ti-ti's. Disturbing, hilrious, honest. (Judges: 10!)

1 comment:

  1. Ben your show on Friday was really good and the talker hag at the front didn't ruin it!

    ReplyDelete