3 months ago
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‘I’m successful control,” sings Jazz Emu, portion the regular (synth noodling, chill funk stylings, malfunctioning robot helmet) collapses astir him. The gag could hardly beryllium sillier, which sets america up nicely for this joke-packed hr from the eccentric philharmonic comic. Jazz is an electro-funk colossus, successful his ain estimation, a DIY Thin White Duke connected synth-clarinet and microwave meals. We find him, alas, successful the doldrums, aft an anti-goblin slur astatine a caller Helsinki gig went viral. Tonight, helium makes his transportation for redemption, aiming to wide his sanction and triumph our hearts earlier his aggravated dada pulls the plug connected his philharmonic career.
It’s an improbable set-up, and Jazz, with his marionette locomotion and Scandi-nowhere accent, is much cartoon than 3D character. But that’s each portion of the amusive here, arsenic creator Archie Henderson builds his alter-ego’s ridiculous world, and populates it densely with audio, ocular and lyrical laughs. As a technological feat unsocial it’s impressive, arsenic Jazz’s videos, microphone trickery and his FaceTime calls with dada each interact. But it’s consistently funny, too, successful that abstraction wherever self-image is everlastingly undermined by bathetic reality. Exhibit A: the see-through opus and video astir Jazz supposedly surviving successful Miami.
But he’s got much than 1 mode to marque america laugh, whether that’s with a way astir the quirks of the English connection (“what the fough is ough with that?!”), a twisted detour into the concealed past of Snap, Crackle and Pop, oregon a prime ocular gag astir Captcha information questions online. There’s a blessed consciousness present of a surfeit of ideas, and a joyousness – shared with the assemblage – astatine bringing this delusional funk wannabe daftly to life.
At Soho theatre, London, until 20 December.
English (US) ·