Benedict Pope - not to be confused with Pope Benedict, for starters he's alive and a "lapsed Catholic" (the lovely way Catholics have of saying the only way out is death) - tells intertwined tales of his life, mostly at weddings, none of them his own.
It may say something about the way Kiwi guys dress that till Ben specifically referred to an ex as a woman, I'd assumed he was gay (he has an English accent and was wearing a button-down, apparently that's all it takes).
As all good shows are, it wasn't entirely off the cuff, there was a flow and order with specific call backs, but he was perfectly confident in adapting to the audience response and had specific pieces tailored to a Wellington crowd.
Fringe is always a mixed bag so I never take a seat convinced I'll have a good time, I may instead be in agony for an hour. No such worries here, everyone in the audience was laughing and it was intelligent humour too, not settling for cheap laughs for swearing or crassness (ok so there was some crassness, but it was classy, must be the accent). If he managed to come here all the way from the UK I should have known he'd be good, and he was.
I managed to squeeze in to his packed final performance. His show is funnier than this review and I'm sorry you missed it.
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