Duncan Oakley's 68 Bumcrack Special

Original Review:

Duncan Oakley is possessed of a certain fairground charm which makes this musical comedy hour a success. Clearly stung by a reviewer who called his show ‘childish’, he makes reference to this several times. Sorry Duncan, but it is childish, but that’s not automatically a bad thing. He’s got the mind of a four-year-old, trapped in a man’s body.

There are songs about cocks, willies, defecation, cunnilingus, anal sex and skating naked in the park, but it’s all done with a the wide eyed innocence of a potty-mouthed child really pushing his parents’ boundaries.

He even burps into the microphone at one point. It’s in the grand old British tradition of finding rude bits funny, and has an antecedent in Flanders and Swann’s Sing A Rude Song, and nobody gets upset about that. It’s just a bit more explicit in the 21st Century.

This isn’t a slick show, there’s some daft voices off, a panto Afro wig to signify Jimi Hendrix, and some dreadful punning so bad that it’s nearly good.

It’s all done with end-of-the-pier gusto and the man really can play – piano, guitar, drums, and harmonica. It’s a silly, rude, fun show – the clue is in the title, after all.

I don’t know who the target audience is – if the references were less sexual it would be for children, I went in thinking ‘this won’t be my cup of tea’ but abandon prejudice at the door and enjoy it for what it is; Viz readers and fans of a seaside postcard humour should flock to it.

Reviewed by: Julian Chambers