For me, beginning any show with Huey Lewis And The News is a good omen, particularly when their hit single
Nathan Cassidy has, undeniably, a very confident stage presence and has won several awards at Buxton Fringe; I know this because the awards were mentioned multiple times throughout the set.
Nathan Cassidy has, undeniably, a very confident stage presence and has won several awards at Buxton Fringe; I know this because the awards were mentioned multiple times throughout the set. Drawing attention to comic tropes in an observational manner can sometimes work, but here it felt repetitive very quickly. There were only a handful of laughs in forty five minutes, which perhaps explains why so many lines were recycled and labelled as ‘callbacks’. Drawing attention to the success (or lack thereof) of each joke in this manner only served to highlight the awkwardness of the situation. Cassidy assured me that he has watched the Back To The Future trilogy, but from this show you would not be able to tell - nor would it matter, as it has little to no relevance on the main impetus of the gig. Whilst I can appreciate the message hidden, confusingly, somewhere in Cassidy’s rant against modern technology, it was lost amid useless and dated jokes that relied on irrelevant references and weak audience interaction.
I was bitterly disappointed – the jokes lacked energy, the self-referential humour fell flat and the crude level of tact was completely unexpected from the way the show was marketed. If you are presenting a trilogy of shows at the Fringe, then repeatedly insulting your audience is not the way to encourage them to come back. I can only hope that the second instalment of this trilogy, which takes place in the Gilded Balloon, hits home with more punters than this afternoon.
