Huge Davies: Whodunnit at Edinburgh Fringe ★★★★½
★★★★½ Huge Davies: Whodunnit at Edinburgh Fringe | Pleasance Courtyard | Aug 10-15, 17-27 | 9:40pm
A scratchy throat and some interestingly timed audience loo breaks can’t stop Huge Davies from knocking this wonder of stand-up narrative trickery out of the park!
Huge Davies has suffered some vocal issues in the early part of this Fringe run, but by the end of this deadpan hour of inspired comedy riffing, the lasting impression is of a comic truly making his voice heard. Stand-up comes in many forms: here, there’s the illusion of no real narrative thread, until – well, that would be a spoiler. Suffice to say that this deceptively tightly written show may leave you thinking Howdunnit once the various threads come together for a barnstorming finale.
If there’s a criticism, it’s that the musical comedy occasionally veers close to the derivative – Bill Bailey was doing takes on BBC News themes 20 years ago, and likely others before that. But hey, if it aint broke don’t fix it, right? Huge takes pot shots both at Radio 4 and – producing heaving, dry-wretches of laughter from this reviewer – the ridiculousness of Radio 1’s Newsbeat. There are other, more original musical moments, a few well-aimed potshots at anyone who can’t differentiate between Asian comedians, and some excellent improvisation with the audience. Beware if you plan to attempt any applause initiation!
Whodunnit? Huge Davies (definitely not Phil Wang).
I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like: nice pubs, film marathons, not doing real marathons, bad comedy, plays/musicals with shorter second halves, and the Oxford comma.
