Davies plays a neat trick on his liberal arts festival audience.
He is some kind of ethnic – but he won’t tell use what kind. So we know he’s Asian –but he variously claims to be Korean, Malaysian, Japanese and Taiwanese.
The audience is desperate for an origin story – but Davies keeps it tantalisingly out of reach – until the end – when he reveals something that is comically unlikely.
Davies is part comic, part DJ. He performs with a gigantic heavy looking keyboard strapped to his neck.
There are a lot of musical punchlines – sound effects, bursts of atmospheric film scores and rewritten pop and dance tunes.
His schtick is to be dark. But he mostly comes across as a sulky teenager who needs a nap.
Davies keeps hinting that his material is too dangerous for his audience. But most of them are probably thinking he needs a sandwich and some Ovaltine.
His relentless references to death, murder and paedophilia are unsubtle and overdone. He’s a human jukebox, stuffed full of music, movie and computer game references, with a refusal to entertain any thoughts of reality.
To be fair some of the punchlines probably depend on references that sail above the heads of older members of the audience.
His best stuff is his material on music festivals and his musical parodies. But sometimes the technology is a bit of a distraction and it’s hard to work out exactly how much he is doing live.
In his final segment we finally see the full effect, as Davies has a surge of energy and becomes a one man rave, dancing, singing and playing his giant keyboard as he bops around the room.
Edinburgh Fringe Review 2019 – Huge Davies, The Carpark is at The Pleasance until August 25. Tickets here.
Read more Edinburgh Fringe reviews here.
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