Matt Forde begins by promising his audience that he will definitely not resign in the middle of his act. Having originally written his show on the premise that Britain votes to remain in the European Union, Forde has had to rewrite all his material for this year’s Fringe – and on tonight’s evidence, the Brexit outcome seems to have given him more license for mischief, more politicians to make fun of; a gift, in fact, for a comedian like him.
Forde commands the attention of the room only a comic of his stature can accomplish.
Forde starts off by dissecting what has gone wrong for the Remain campaign, while utilising his forte as an impressionist to his advantage. His David Cameron impersonation is smooth, his Boris Johnson one is good too, but his Gordon Brown voice is gold – and he seems to have mastered their gait as well as he trots around the stage to laughter and applause. Whichever side the audience is on, there is surely plenty to enjoy as Forde covers just about everything that has come out of recent politics.
Party politics is another topic that he indulges: both the embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are ridiculed without remorse. It is particularly fascinating how Forde can touch upon every issue or political personality without imputing any firm viewpoints upon his audience. Being a self-declared Blairte doesn’t stop him aping Owen Smith.
There are no real moral lessons to be gleaned here; but instead, everyone can simply delight in the farce that he ascribes to current events. Gradually, these events also include the ongoing US Presidential Election Campaign across the Atlantic, and he tells a memorable story of meeting a Trump supporter taxi driver in New York City who tells him ‘crazy times need a crazy guy’. To be fair to him, he is discernibly not the biggest fan of Trump - but that is not a controversial position to take.
Throughout the show, Forde commands the attention of the room only a comic of his stature can accomplish. He can sense the mood of the audience and astutely test the limits he can breach with every hush or gasp of the crowd.
