Comedy review: Hans Teeuwen

Published on Monday 17 August 2009 21:07

**** UDDERBELLY'S PASTURE (VENUE 300)

AFTER the deluge of coverage accompanying Hans Teeuwen's return to the Fringe, I can't help but feel we're becoming overly accustomed to the absurdist Dutchman. He actually attracts volunteers for his latest puppet set-piece, though he xenophobically rejects the first pair with a snarled "f*** off, Dutch bitches!"

Still, in the airy Udderbelly it feels like Teeuwen's potency is being threatened by popular adoption, his frisson of danger and unpredictability dissipated ever so slightly by his burgeoning fame in these isles. An expectant audience seem to have mentally pre-tuned to his wavelength, putting the pressure on him to unsettle them once more.

He opens with his tribute to Michael Jackson, an increasingly passionate medley that grows progressively off-key and gurning, before launching into a meditation on the atmosphere-killing quality of death, the banality of the statement reinforced by a gratuitous allusion to a blind girl.

Approaching a lectern, he feigns to impart wisdom with the persuasive gestures of his exceptional physical charisma. Reeling off a litany of professions, each non-sequitur or bald statement becomes subservient to the rhythm with which they're delivered, the routine stretched out to just the right length before segueing into a disturbing Oedipal scene between a failed actor and his mother.

A visit to the Fairytale Forest is classic Teeuwen, the archetypal conventions of such stories subverted by his steadfast refusal to indulge their cutesy logic, contriving characters that confuse each other and him even as he inhabits them. It's brilliantly done, probing the audience's patience. And although it's a trick he's employed before, it's worth remarking that only his peerless standards of originality make such criticism possible.

Within the normal parameters of comedy, there are interminable periods of awkwardness and boredom in Teeuwen's set. But this only ensures that the release of laughter for the perversity of his hand puppets, the floor-rolling, physical contortions of his latest daft Dr Hemmington ditty and the neutering of religious tension through deliberate juvenility (Jeeew!) is that much the greater.

Even a couple of straight, bluesy numbers at the keyboard only serve to make his explicit finale a joyously funny singalong.

• Until 28 August. 26 August 11:35pm