This is the first aboriginal comic I’ve ever seen, I think, and he provides a high energy, entertaining hour, telling jokes and playing the didgeridoo, which makes a remarkably resonant noise and adds much to the fun.
What he gets right is to fill the room from the start with the energy of an excitable boy, seemingly genuinely thrilled to be in Edinburgh at the Fringe. It is, after all, a long way from rural New South Wales, which does sound like quite a remarkable place.
Some of the material needed tightening up a little so that the jokes land more squarely and there’s fat to be trimmed off the set but I particularly enjoyed his bits about his hometown which were painted very vividly and an extended routine about buying coffee for his boss had clearly been worked on and honed to perfection so that it really delivered the goods. His riffs about his dad are also entertaining and funny.
Then there’s an array of ‘didges’ all of which he plays with skill and gusto.One of them, a smaller hand-held thing, makes a noise like a blue whale. It’s incredible. In a smallish room, it sounds amazing. In fact, had he not done an hour of comedy, an hour of didge playing would have been fine by me. He’s only doing a short run but he’s got something going for him and has a unique selling point. This isn’t one of those shows where you feel in the least bit self-conscious. It is, actually, quite joyful.
Dane Simpson: ‘Didgeridoozy’
Assembly George Square Studios. Studio 4 22.30
Aug 11-13
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dane-simpson-didgeridoozy
