David Reed review

David Reed's fantastic one-man sketch show leads you through a surreal, hilarious world of doughnuts with dreams, children's Viking obsessions, and shopkeepers struggling with taxidermy. Completely confident and in control of both audience and stage, Reed delivers his Pythonesque lines perfectly whilst putting the crowd completely at ease, so that we never feel lost even in the strangest, darkest places he takes us.

The impressive array of bizarre, sad characters might lack memories or social graces or a human body but they are never wacky or shallow. This respect for even the strangest, loneliest figure pays off in wonderful tragic-comic set pieces. Reed's serious skill with language gags provides regular laughs, and jokes to allow his characters space to tell their own stories, often building to moving, if deeply weird conclusions. As one character chokes on sobs whilst helplessly sucking his fingers laughter is mixed with sounds of horror, another story's final line brings relieved giggles and cheers.

Shamblehouse doesn't pack in quite as many jokes some sketch shows out there, but there is interesting stuff going on in the gaps between gags, and when the laughs do come they're entirely worth it. Different sections vary in quality - the South African character feels unfinished - but high points like Milo the doughnut are simply incredible. Reed is a great performer and his first solo outing since the Penny Dreadfuls is a wonderfully strange, funny, fascinating show.

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David Reed: Shamblehouse listing