Original Review:

Show Rating:

For all his attention-seeking attempts to outrage, Capurro is becoming decidedly dull.

After nine festivals, what was once raw and exciting is now predictable, and the often ordinary material cannot be disguised behind a smokescreen of offensive language and graphic descriptions of gay sex.

He's becoming a unique type of hack comedian - if that's not an oxymoron - simply replacing every tired 'and then I got off the bus' punchline with 'and then I fucked him up the ass.'

It's as if he has a checklist of targets he thinks will affront - handicapped people, 'retards', backs, Jews, the Chinese - attaches a term of abuse and juxtaposes it with some gay sex reference.

Yet no matter how hard he tries, no one really gets offended.

When he does drag himself away from the loins, the unexciting material is shown up for how shallow it is - Deep South Americans are inbred, George W. Bush's surname is the same as a slang word for pubic hair, Lisa Minnelli's wedding was full of freaks, that sort of level.

And it's all underwritten with an unattractively self-absorbed and bitter persona who bitches about his three-star Scotsman review and his lack of Perrier nominations.

There's no doubt Capurro can produce a first-rate show - even as he sleepwalks through this hour he produces a few decent lines and occasionally turns some of his bile to good effect. And, his relaxed, laid-back style can be devastatingly effective.

But when your show ends by embarrassing a member of the audience by miming oral sex on him, you know this is a comic desperately running out of ideas.