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Stephen Carlin
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It’s a brave and original comic that starts with Stalin based humour, and manages to warm the crowd into his world.
Carlin is very enigmatic, using a unique pattern of delivery to amuse the audience with very unexpected and off the wall
references. From his sartorial elegance to his in-depth and hilarious knowledge of International snooker, Carlin’s
performance takes the audience into the mind of a passionate obsessive. This man is on his way to become Scotland's
newest addition to it’s history of brilliant comedians. |
Thu 3 Nov 2005
Stewart Lee/Steven Carling
ROGER COX
*****
THE STAND, EDINBURGH
STEWART Lee is one of the funniest men on the planet, and it was no surprise to see him prove it for the umpteenth time on Tuesday night. What did come as a shock, however, was to see his support act - the hitherto unknown Scot Steven Carling - come within a cat's whisker of upstaging him.
When the sustained applause that followed Carling's storming 30-minute set finally died down, the Stand was abuzz. "Who was that guy?" one woman was heard to ask her friend, as if Carling had just swooped out of the heavens wearing a cape and a pair of tights and saved her infant son from certain death.
Sporting a beard worthy of Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, twinned with a pair of thick-rimmed specs and a pinstriped suit, Carling didn't do anything particularly revolutionary. He simply deadpanned his way through one beautifully constructed bit of material after another until his time was up.
Perhaps his greatest strength is his ability to look at things we've long taken for granted and systematically pull them to pieces. For example: why did Popeye the Sailor Man seem to spend most of his time on dry land? And why did he feel the need to sing his job description to himself? Was he, in fact, a sailor man in crisis?
It is probably unwise to make bold claims for a comedian based on only half an hour in their company, but what the heck: if this man isn't a household name in a five years' time, the world is even more lacking in justice than we could have feared. |
2005
Supported Stewart Lee on his "90's Comedian" tour
Finalist, Hackney Empire New Act Competition
Writer and performer on the Milk Run, BBC Radio One
Big Value Comedy Show, Edinburgh Festival, Cafe Royal
2004
Exploding Head Comedy, Edinburgh Festival, Underbelly
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