John Cooper-Clarke – Underbelly – 4 stars
Edward Aczel – Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try Again. Fail
Again. Fail Better. – Underbelly – 4 stars
Exactly when the veteran bard of Salford John Cooper-Clarke acquired
national treasure status is hard to pin down, though it was probably
somewhere between his TV ad for Sugar Puffs and his heroin addiction.
Now clean but still rake-thin, wild-haired and bug-eyed behind shades
that can’t disguise a terminally amused, totally wired mind, there’s an
unexpected slickness to Clarke’s late-night Edinburgh run, and it’s
clear that age hasn’t withered his razor-sharp wit.
Bounding on to a near capacity crowd following a pre-show selection of
1960s chicken-in-a-basket cabaret classics, he drags a chair closer to
the microphone stand and rests his bag on it. “Why struggle?” he
ponders in his deadpan northern twang. It’s the double-edged sword of
such seemingly throwaway one-liners that make Cooper-Clarke so deadly.
Part club turn, part Dadaist observer of life’s everyday absurdities,
Cooper-Clarke’s every utterance is a punchline, although he gets to the
poetry fairly quickly compated to previous easily distracted outings.
He opens his set with the machine-gun rattle of Hire Car, moves into
his homage to Burnley and ricochets into the work that captured the
grimness of 1970s Britain that can sit alongside T.S.Eliot’s The
Wasteland and is as bleak as a Ken Loach film, Beasley Street. Beyond
the greatest hits , though, are peppered such treats as Beasley
Street’s urban regenerated sequel, Beasley Boulevard and at least three
brand new poems, including the blissfully unironic I’ve Fallen In Love
With My Wife. Somewhere along the way there’s a hilarious impression of
Fall frontman and Salford contemporary, Mark E Smith, before a closing
Evidently Chickentown reveals a recession era anthem that might just
have found its time again.
Edward Aczel’s new show is as much a form of anti-comedy as
Cooper-Clarke’s canon. Aczel even references Samuel Beckett in his
latest hour of bumbling fun with flip-charts, audience quizzes and
rubbish prizes that have to be given back. Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No
Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better follows the formula of
previous shows, and in that way leans as much to Sisyphus as to Beckett
in its hangdog mix of bemusement and mild disdain at an inane world
Aczel attempts to get a grip of. If he ever learns how to deal with
hecklers, he might be even more dangerous than he is.
The Herald, August 27th 2010
ends
Edward Aczel – Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try Again. Fail
Again. Fail Better. – Underbelly – 4 stars
Exactly when the veteran bard of Salford John Cooper-Clarke acquired
national treasure status is hard to pin down, though it was probably
somewhere between his TV ad for Sugar Puffs and his heroin addiction.
Now clean but still rake-thin, wild-haired and bug-eyed behind shades
that can’t disguise a terminally amused, totally wired mind, there’s an
unexpected slickness to Clarke’s late-night Edinburgh run, and it’s
clear that age hasn’t withered his razor-sharp wit.
Bounding on to a near capacity crowd following a pre-show selection of
1960s chicken-in-a-basket cabaret classics, he drags a chair closer to
the microphone stand and rests his bag on it. “Why struggle?” he
ponders in his deadpan northern twang. It’s the double-edged sword of
such seemingly throwaway one-liners that make Cooper-Clarke so deadly.
Part club turn, part Dadaist observer of life’s everyday absurdities,
Cooper-Clarke’s every utterance is a punchline, although he gets to the
poetry fairly quickly compated to previous easily distracted outings.
He opens his set with the machine-gun rattle of Hire Car, moves into
his homage to Burnley and ricochets into the work that captured the
grimness of 1970s Britain that can sit alongside T.S.Eliot’s The
Wasteland and is as bleak as a Ken Loach film, Beasley Street. Beyond
the greatest hits , though, are peppered such treats as Beasley
Street’s urban regenerated sequel, Beasley Boulevard and at least three
brand new poems, including the blissfully unironic I’ve Fallen In Love
With My Wife. Somewhere along the way there’s a hilarious impression of
Fall frontman and Salford contemporary, Mark E Smith, before a closing
Evidently Chickentown reveals a recession era anthem that might just
have found its time again.
Edward Aczel’s new show is as much a form of anti-comedy as
Cooper-Clarke’s canon. Aczel even references Samuel Beckett in his
latest hour of bumbling fun with flip-charts, audience quizzes and
rubbish prizes that have to be given back. Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No
Matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better follows the formula of
previous shows, and in that way leans as much to Sisyphus as to Beckett
in its hangdog mix of bemusement and mild disdain at an inane world
Aczel attempts to get a grip of. If he ever learns how to deal with
hecklers, he might be even more dangerous than he is.
The Herald, August 27th 2010
ends
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