‘It’s taken us 60 minutes to bring on stage a single comedian!” The variety night Stamptown is nothing if not eclectic. With one caveat. In the words of that first solo standup on stage, Kemah Bob, “Oh, the pressure of being the only fully clothed act of the night!” If you want comedy, and anarchy, with a generous side helping of exposed buttock, Zach Zucker’s late-night mixed bill is the show for you.
That takes adjusting to. Part of the anti-comedy joke about Zucker’s alter ego, our host Jack Tucker, is that he’s a bit of a sleazebag, so it’s conspicuous that the first act he introduces is a striptease – sorry, burlesque – act. Is that part of the joke? Not really: there’s nothing ironic about the crowd’s whooping at every disrobed garment, and our seedy compere would presumably be less keen on the two scantily clad male performers further down the bill.
I may be less persuaded than Tucker – or Zucker – that Stamptown needs nudity to spice it up. There’s enough zing in the comedy and cabaret, from Martin Urbano, live-reviewing the show from the wings, from agent of (even more) chaos Natalie Palamides, the halves of whose body play two lovers at odds, and from Marshall Arkley, whose bullwhip and fire-breathing antics are spectacular enough without his flesh-pot finale.
If I’m giving the impression that these acts are neatly arranged, one after another, let me clarify: they tumble atop one another at Stamptown, heckling and interrupting our MC across 75 haywire, high-wire minutes. Steffen Hånes’s vampire spoof makes intermittent appearances. Siblings (Maddy and Marina Bye) play deadpan stagehands. Piotr Sikora’s skin-headed hoodlum Furiozo pitches in with a terrifying then lovely silent sketch, after which he never quite goes away.
But the star of the show remains Zucker, in whose image it’s made, and who seldom condescends to leave the stage. It’s his shotgun intensity – and blatant proprietorship – that powers proceedings, and binds its disparate parts. If that can make the night feel like being trapped in a room with a neurotic – well, at least it’s a neurotic who curates winningly helter- skelter, late-night entertainment.
At Soho theatre, London, until 27 January
