Pleasance Dome – JackDome
Aug 10-26 (18.50)

Material:   Delivery:  Laughs: Rooom:

Alasdair Beckett-King & his Rapuntzel’s worth of hair has arrived in our galaxy-corner via some wormhole or another, to take a cleaver to society & dissect it with his philosphical mind. As Shelley placed poets both at the center & the very edge of all things, so too stands the unconvential conventiality of Beckett-King. He begins his show with a brilliant animated theme song, based very much, I believe, on the Ulysses cartoon of my youth. I have given them both for fun.

“This is observational comedy, but I can’t guarantee we’ll observe the same things, can I?” quips our showman, & off we float on a merry balloon trip over Britain & beyond – orchestrated by a funny professor with the imagination of a myriad-sided spinning top, whirling around quite wildly & leaving us never knowing on which face it shall land. Sometimes a cheap gag, sometimes a shrewd slice of the innate impotency of our planet. Alasdair Beckett-King is a lively, robust performer, a golden apple in the orchard of the Fringe, whose accomplished gifts blend erudition & entertainment in a way I’ve never quite felt before, creating cute & cosmic comedy.

Damian Beeson Bullen