The Wee Coo, George Square
Aug 22-28 (21:20)

Material:   Delivery:   Laughs:

Francesco De Carlo is an incredibly fluent English-speaker who has decided to depart from his native land – where comedians are paid in food & ‘visibility’ & try his luck at the UK comedy circuit. That he did it in the same week we voted for Brexit adds a certain cloud of uncertainty to his career move, but for now, while the UK are still European, he’s just getting on with it. His background his unusual, a press officer for the European Parliament; but this has given him a keen universality & touches of satirical political observation as good as any.

De Carlo’s social commentary is pickled with many a ticklish angle & is all actually rather delightful. For those wanting an insight into Italian culture & its sense of humour, however, Francesco is not for you; he’s more interested in Netflix than Naples. But what this ever-smiling cavalier servente of comedy does offer is a wide & funny panorama of modern life, including extremely witty observations of British culture, all packaged up into a really nice little comedy show which hovers on the edges of the Fringe mainstay. If De Carlo is not quite yet the man of THE moment, then he is definitely the man of OUR moment; being well-placed as a comedian performing across the UK to make some kind of comedic record of this tumultuous moment in European history, & I look forward to seeing him again in a year’s time where hopefully he will be continuing with his Thalian brand of journalism.

Reviewer : Damo