Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The Reggie Watts Tangent
Smirnoff Underbelly
The great tradition of the nonsense song is taken to new and modern extremes by Reggie Watts. First, he ponderously announces the content ('This is a song about an East End limo driver who becomes separated from his testicles').
Then he spends ten minutes talking about something completely unconnected, like the history of the curtsy. Finally, he embarks on a song of his looped vocals that sounds like a trance remix of a medieval song cycle with a madman screeching over the top.
It's also worth noting that introduction and song bear no resemblance to each other. There are moments when the frantic quality of Watts's singing and the absolute improbability of his performance fuse to make sitting in the audience seem hysterical in itself.
Parting his Afro to reveal wide-eyed enthusiasm and a huge appetite for verbal contortion, Watts is an engagingly surreal stage presence who carries the audience along by the sheer power of his deliberately misguided enthusiasm.
The intros are sometimes frustratingly long and don't always pay off but, as a fresh comic voice, Watts certainly carries a lasting charge of comic electricity.
Until Aug 28 (no perf Aug 15), Smirnoff Underbelly, 10.30pm, £9 to £10, £7.50 to £8.50 concs.
