Alexis Dubus Verses The World. Venue 68, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
With a globe, a hat and a microphone, Alexis Dubus sings, makes faces, reads poems and tells stories with a confidence and an ease that puts him in the top rank of eccentric comedic entertainers.
We hear about the his meeting with a stranger in Perth who simply asked if his prawn roll in a take-away was weird; there’s a conversation with a candid racist about a rock; and one on how getting stabbed guarantees that you’ll get married. His show Alexis Dubus Verses the World takes his life and its minor incidents and turns them into bursts of performance poetry, comic songs and neatly crafted anecdotes – all dispatched with an easy charm and a cheeky grin. His running gags help to connect the show’s contents (which he explains doesn’t have a particular theme) but skilfully cements 60 minutes of ingredients into a satisfying comedic pudding.
Appearing in the Edinburgh Fringe’s much smaller section of Spoken Word rather than the overblown Comedy zone meant that spotting his free gig in the programme was much easier than looking through the countless list of comedy shows. He is known as a stand-up, which gives his poetry and songs a theme all of their own. And he was able to describe the life of a comic in verse with his poem To Be a Comic:
An eleven hour round trip to Torquay,
After petrol, pies and speeding fines you are left with fifty pee,
After ten minutes of stage time where they stare at you moronic,
And you re-edit your dream of what it’s like to be a comic.
The show continues until August 28, 2016. Free but donations welcome.
Harry Mottram
Five stars
More details at http://www.alexisdubus.com
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