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Scott Cappuro
with Simon Munnery, Alex Horne, The 2 Magicians
- Monkey Business Comedy Night
- O’Reilly’s, Kentish Town, London
- 3 March 2007
Cappuro is still using shock tactics to sell tickets. Thank God then, for wordsmith Alex Horne and the irrepressible Simon Munnery
There has been a lot written about Scott Capurro and his ability to shock an audience into awed submission. The gay San Franciscan with a dirty mouth has been offending his way around the globe for over a decade but in the current environment – where every chancer with oh-so-risqué material on AIDS is getting TV time – his act seems pretty conservative.
He’s fast out of the blocks with well-argued material on how the Holocaust museum is becoming the new Disney World but his energy quickly flounders when he sets about ticking off his checklist of taboos.
It’s not wholly his fault though - the audience is begging to be mock-offended; literally, at one point. "What about the Muslims? When are you going to lay into them?" yells one fan of subtlety and wit. Capurro duly obliges. It is a sad moment that says a lot about the state of anti-PC comedy, with idiotic audiences and lazy performers seemingly losing sight of the fact that there is no merit to shock for shock’s sake.
The eternally touring Simon Munnery, a comedic equivalent to The Fall, confuses and amuses the audience in his usual manner before disappearing into the night. There’s no bill that cannot be improved by an appearance by Munnery and it makes you wish that overuse hadn’t rendered the word ‘legend’ meaningless.
Alex Horne performed with class, reminding us that the best comedy is simple. All you need to do is say something interesting in an amusing way and you’re there, the rest is just fluff. Charming like Dave Gorman and punning like Tim Vine, 20 minutes in his company is not long enough.
The 2 Magicians were another lesson in the value of charisma. While roughly performed tricks and patchy material would have sunk other acts, these two charmers make haphazard stunts endearingly amusing.
Josh Widdicombe
