by Kim Skinner
It’s noon on a suffocatingly hot and sticky Saturday in Barcelona. A smallish audience has gathered in the gratifyingly cool basement of The Comedy Clubhouse to see Fat Goose Goes Halves.
Suddenly the Ski Sunday theme tune strikes up and Darren Cullen and Ewan May come barrelling into the room, boisterously shaking everyone’s hand. It’s how they always open their Fat Goose open mic. It’s simple and effective, and even in this sleepy, slightly awkward room it delivers a jump-start and has us all awake and ready to laugh.
The lads take to the stage together, again echoing the format of their open mic. They were the first hosting duo that I saw do this in Barcelona, and it works. They are good pals and bounce off each other well, leading into laid back and well-reciprocated crowd work.
After ten minutes or so, and several failed attempts to pronounce the word ‘surreptitiously’, Darren not-so-surreptitiously leaves the stage so that Ewan can introduce him. Darren Cullen comes back on to enthusiastic applause, and opens by talking about how much he hates his name. One audience member points out that Darren shares his surname with a number of Twilight characters. “I tried to use that as a pickup line once,” he says. “It was before the hair. It didn’t work…” He has award-winning hair, you see. He won Best Hair at last year’s Clubbies (The Comedy Clubhouse’s annual awards). It’s not an Olivier award, but it’s not to be sniffed at.
He goes on to talk about how he came to be living in Barcelona, culture shock at the hands of landladies and locksmiths, and navigating Catalan instructions for medical procedures, among other things. Darren’s style is relaxed and conversational, but there’s perhaps been more crowd interaction than he intended; he’s slightly alarmed when Ewan informs him he has five minutes left. “You don’t mind if I just do the whole hour, do you?” he quips.
Maybe it bothers Darren—it’s always annoying when you have to cut stuff out—but it doesn’t matter to the audience. It’s a great set, the material has flowed, and we certainly don’t feel shortchanged.
Ewan May opens with one of his trademarks: conducting the audience in applause and cheers, making us go up, down, louder, softer, wibbly-wobbly… It’s as fun as it is silly.
“I’ve got about 15 minutes left,” says Ewan. He begins to rattle off a list of “People often tell me I look like…” which gets progressively more ridiculous, and the exaggerated speed of delivery makes it even funnier.
He then gives us a rundown of the last 10 years of his life, starting with getting turned down for a delivery job with a certain pizza franchise. We’re then taken through a number of surreal scenarios, my favourite being a bit about inventing an alternative to the handkerchief, complete with customer reviews—the names of the supposed rival products send me into a quite unseemly bout of hysterics. He finishes by guiding us in a meditation which may or may not have a subliminal message…
Ewan is a master of the absurd, and the audience is with him all the way. He rounds off the show with a rendition of a classic hit I wouldn’t dare spoil, with Darren by his side.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable hour of comedy, with these two very different performers complementing each other well. It’s a good format, too: ten minutes at the top with both of them onstage getting to know the audience creates a comfortable enough atmosphere that we unquestioningly embrace the weirdness to come.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sudden irrepressible craving for a Veggie Sizzler large stuffed crust…
Fat Goose Goes Halves runs Aug. 1–13 with Laughing Horse @ West Port Oracle. Get tickets on the Edinburgh Fringe website.
