fringe: the boy with tape on his face

Tonight's show of choice was my very late pick of The Boy with Tape on his Face... I'd heard good things about it, so I figured I may as well give it a shot.

Turns out it was an exceptionally good idea! And not only because The Boy is as cute as a button.

I went down to The Garden of Unearthly Delights nice and early... I decided I couldn't be bothered making dinner before I took myself off to The Garden, so I bought some dinner down there... Gozleme, a delicious lemon drink and then a childhood flashback, oliebollen... yummy!

It also meant that I was very near the beginning of the line (right behind a big hunk of gorgeous... *sigh*), which means that I ended up in the front row of the Bosco Theatre (the same one we saw The Grimstones in).

I was a little concerned to be honest... the show is very heavy with audience participation, and I did wonder if sitting in the front row would make me a target... but finally I just figured fuck it, if it happens it happens... and had I sat on the opposite side to the one I originally planned to it might have.

As the audience filed in, The Boy is actually sitting on stage, complete with the ubiquitous face tape, and he's obviously watching the room, so whether he marks out his potential victims then or not, I don't know.

I would also imagine that while the show is the same every night, the end result would be ever so slightly different every time depending on who The Boy selects from the audience.

But the show is hilarious!

Because The Boy is doing everything right there live on stage, there's that lag time before you realise what he's doing... be it creating a puppet or conveying to the audience member what it is that he wants them to do... which is doubly difficult since it's all done through gesture and his eyes.

Once the audience does work it out though, whether it's because of a musical cue or they can see what he's putting together, you get that moment of laughter or applause or both.

Actually there was a lot of applause... lots of clapping along to the music... and lots of laughter.

The Boy is exceptionally talented... he has the most expressive eyes, and is very skilled at turning a big box of junk and a roll of gaffer tape into an entire show.

And the finale, which also brings to an end a joke that runs through the entire show (I'm guessing it's the same every night), takes a long time to set up, but it's fantastic once it is.

We also got an additional encore... although I'm not sure whether that was something he usually does, or something he only did because tonight was the AC/DC concert... but the audience was suitably "thunderstruck"!

I understand now why it was awarded the Best Comedy Show at last year's Fringe... if you missed out on seeing him last year, I definitely recommend The Boy with Tape on his Face.

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