Mandalay
Review: Russell Baillie
Five star? More a three-and-a-half star event, if you averaged out the opening night efforts of the four "international" comics plus one local MC who make up this comedy show which kicks off the last lap of this year's International Laugh! Festival.
However, it does offer a few things for those feeling a bit disappointed by a festival which has seemingly boasted a lot of competent stand-ups but little in the way of comedic genius - that ol' difference between tells funny and is funny.
Ross Noble, who is splitting his evenings this week between his own gig at the Classic and the Mandalay package show, definitely is funny.
The Englishman with the shock of red hair and a manner which resembles a young Spike Milligan was the last-on hit of the night.
A master of the scatterbrained digression, his set was a splendid mental juggling act that put his predecessors in the shade. He turned idle thoughts into grand themes with seeming spontaneity and took us with him on every mental swerve. Even the one about Stephen Hawking's Monster Truck Extravaganza. The best live comedy is always a guess-you-had-to-be-there experience and Noble's definitely is.
Up before Noble, Daniel Tosh was that rarity at this year's festival - an American. In fact, the only one we've had when, in the past, that country has supplied the event's comedic edge. But Tosh is from Los Angeles, looks like Julia Roberts (he said it, we agreed) and talks real fast. He is a heck of lot of bitter-and-twisted fun ... even if the prayer-in-schools joke among a few green-card-required others are never really going to fly in these parts, being a foreign country n'all.
Lanky Canadian-resident Jamaican "Papa" Ronnie Edwards has a resemblance to Jar Jar Binks of the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which makes him mildly amusing for the most part. But material-wise, when forced to look outside his passport (so you're black huh?) or his trousers for material he was soon found wanting of anything original.
London East Ender, now Grey Lynn resident, Rob Callahan was less than edifying with his material, largely based on memories of home and the word "innit?".
But MC Jeremy Corbett - standing in for Andrew Clay, delayed in Fiji (he's not on that Mole Island programme is he?) - rose to the occasion, at his best (when not hassling the front rows) on a neatly contemplated segment entitled "The Drug Olympics."
The show continues until Saturday.
Performance: 5 Star International Showcase
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