Comedy review: Carey Marx

WHILE Carey Marx may give the impression of being the ultimate stoner comic, his memory hasn't been damaged beyond repair by such leisure pursuits.

With tales of eating a cooked breakfast off a woman's body, being plagued at school for having a forename that rhymes with absolutely everything and forcing drunken sex upon a snowman who turns out to be an albino, he has plundered his back catalogue from 2003 and merged it with fresher material about our doom and gloom culture.

Perhaps it's just that Marx's comedic concerns have remained constant, with his desire for crafting the technically perfect joke matched only by an unflinching desire to dabble in the most offensive terrain.

Previously he relied on a naturally boyish charm to get away with discussing rape, paedophilia and the 'c' word; now, with Marx a little rougher round the edges, when things get a little too outr he wields a fluffy teddy bear called Parsnip to show that it's impossible to be truly offended when confronted by something so cute.

All this is turned grotesquely on its head, however, with a closing sequence in which Parsnip is ritually abused by his master.

But the one thing that even his fiercest critics would have to throw their hands up to is Marx's ability to concoct some beautifully realised imagery.

The albino/snowman motif is echoed with his routine about the burka-clad Muslim and a postbox and you can only hope that, if Marx ever has kids, he refrains from haunting them with his own special take on the Tooth Fairy.