MY FIRST impression of Darryl J. Carrington was that I desperately wanted his classic, chocolate-brown Adidas tracksuit.
My lasting impression was that if I could conjure up a smidgeon of the joy he can with no words, a few basic props and a raft of clever ideas, it’d make my second career as an ASN teacher a whole lot more fun for all involved.
And perhaps stop me being bitten quite so often.
DJC, as I presume his friends don’t call him, is a silent, visual clown/comedian in the same vein as The Boy With Tape On His Face.
Now, quite a few of these acts surfaced in the wake of TBWTOHF’s success but, for my money, none can hold a candle to this fella’s sheer, chaotic genius and joy.
I don’t know if he’ll take this as the compliment it’s intended to be but this whole hour is just brilliantly stupid.
Burst tennis balls singing the hits of Queen? All right, then.
How can a grown man using a table-tennis bat to fire a teabag into a cup held by a member of the audience be so funny? Well, only if the bat-wielding fella is Darryl and his increasingly pained expressions as the poor stooge kept failing to catch the teabag – even when he tried to basically drop it in from a distance of three inches – were oxygen-sappingly hilarious.
Now, some folk can be put off by the faintest whiff of audience participation, and there is less a whiff, more a total noseful where Darryl is concerned.
But fear not, you’re in safe hands here.
It’s basically a solo show but Darryl does have a sidekick, a cute little dog called Flippy. Honestly, I have never seen a room full of people so invested in an animatronic toy, willing him to achieve his goal and letting out devastated “Awwws” when he doesn’t quite manage it.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be handed a couple of soft rubber tennis balls on the way in, and at various times the Space Invaders tune will ring out, Darry will stick a net on top of his head and you can try to lob a ball into it.
With us, only one guy managed this feat – twice. Needless to say I started to chuck the balls at him.
This show is ostensibly about ambition, performance and failure. Well, we can tick off the first two but failure? Not a bit of it. This is a triumph.
Darryl J. Carrington: Tennish, 22:00, Underbelly Bristo Square – Clover August 5-31 (not 18).
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/darryl-j-carrington-tennish
