Heroes @ The Hive

Aug 6-28

Ticket in advance / Pay what you like

Laughs:    Material:    Delivery: 

In 1974, sometime after a celebrity party near Luton, Tommy Cooper & Bjorn Borg’s love child was born. His name is Paul Currie, a ridiculously funny man who has this sterling ability to control the actions of every person in his large crowd. As I watched him get them all standing, dancing & singing ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ in total unison, I’m like this guy’s more charismatic than Napoleon. In fact, if Currie would have ordered the Old Gaurd to advance on the British at Waterloo, they would never have turned back & fled – he’s that bloody commanding. Its one of the best things I’ve ever seen at the Fringe – I say thing because I’m not quite sure what his show actually is. I guess its slapstickian vaudeville driven in its highest gear by an incredibly amendable comedian.

He makes his entrance in a spectacular fashion, gliding about the room to some euphoric music… I swear down, the trip to see Currie is worth it for this alone. Absolutely brilliant. From here, we are given an open invitation to peruse the madcap mentalities of this laugh-a-second madman, from his Jesus-sings-Madonna routine to a wonderful sequence when he sings a song called ‘Telephone-lips.’ Also, when you have seen Currie doing Christoper Walken doing Star Wars, you really know you have lived. The camaraderie that Currie blew throughout the audience is something I have never actually seen outside of, say, a Butlins holiday camp – but witnessing it happen among the quasi-cynical crowds of the Edinburgh fringe was a new experience. I do urge you, your pals, & their pals n’all, who you have never met, to see Currie while he’s in town. He’s that good.

Reviewer : Damian Beeson Bullen