‘IIt took us 60 minutes to get just one actor on stage! Stamptown Variety Night is simply eclectic. With one caveat. In the words of Kemah Bob, first solo stand-up on stage: “Oh, the pressure of being the only fully dressed performer of the night! » If you want comedy and anarchy, with a generous helping of exposed butt, Zach Zucker’s late-night mixed bill is the show for you.
This requires adaptation. Part of the anti-comedy joke about Zucker’s alter ego, our host Jack Tucker, is that he’s a bit of a sleazeball, so it’s obvious that the first act he performs is a striptease act – sorry, burlesque. Is that part of the joke? Not really: there’s nothing ironic about the crowd shouting at every undressed item, and our scruffy compadre would probably be less interested in the two scantily clad male performers later in the poster.
I’m perhaps less convinced than Tucker – or Zucker – that Stamptown needs nudity to spice things up. There’s enough spice in comedy and cabaret, from Martin Urbano, who reviews the show live from behind the scenes, to agent of (even more) chaos Natalie Palamides, whose body halves play two lovers at odds , and Marshall Arkley, whose whiplash and fire-breathing antics are spectacular enough without his fleshpot finale.
If I make it sound like these acts are carefully arranged, one after the other, let me clarify: They overlap with Stamptown, heckling and interrupting our MC for 75 unhinged and tense minutes. Steffen Hånes’ vampire parody makes intermittent appearances. The siblings (Maddy and Marina Bye) play deadpan stagehands. Furiozo, Piotr Sikora’s skin-headed thug, intervenes with a terrifying then charming silent sketch, after which he never really leaves.
But the star of the show remains Zucker, in whose image it is made, and who rarely deigns to leave the stage. It’s its shotgun intensity – and blatant ownership – that fuels the proceedings and binds its disparate parts together. If that can make it sound like being locked in a room with a neurotic at night — well, at least it’s a neurotic who successfully organizes messy late-night entertainment.