Show Details
Rob Deb: Heroquest
Show type: Edinburgh Fringe 2007
Starring Comic:
Rob Deb

Rob Deb: Heroquest


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Description

Free Show! D&D ride through Sci Fi/Fantasy as Rob 'Dungeonmaster' Deb deals with a world of elves, dwarves, cyborgs and psychos using funny sided dice and a Commodore 64. Bring your plasmagun, broadsword, and kick some Orc!

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Reviews

Original Review:

Show Rating:Rob Deb: Heroquest rated 1/5

If you know nothing about gaming, live role play or 20-sided dice, don’t see this show – you’ll be bored stiff.

Deb isn’t instantly dislikeable and has a reasonable delivery, but his material makes no concessions for those with no previous knowledge of his world. From the start, it felt like accidentally walking into a Trekkie convention and by the end, it was like listening to someone reading a car manual aloud.It may as well have been in Chinese for all the sense it made to me.

To people who understand this scene, the jokes may well have been fairly funny (there were a couple of women near the front who seemed to get it) but with almost everything a reference to games, novels or characters not put into any context, you really do need to know the subject.

Deb’s shtick is that he’s a 30-something geek who works in a bookshop and still lives at home with his mother. It’s a premise that could work well in more competent hands.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t exaggerate it into any level of comedy and what you get is the dull and socially inept monologue of a genuine 30-something geek who works in a bookshop and lives at home with his mother. It’s about as funny as being stuck in a lift with one.

He has a few gags more suitable for general consumption, but they’re not good enough to make up for the other 90 per cent that leave you cold.

Deb seems a nice guy and the show is free, but it came as a surprise that he didn’t get some vicious heckling for this. Perhaps everyone was just too bored to bother.

Reviewed by: Nione Meakin
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Comments

Fantastic show, the woman who only gave Rob one star should hang her head in shame, sure, I guess she's just yet another example of the "normals" of this world crapping on the nerds, personally, I think the Nerds are by far the nicer people, man, this guy is funny and a totally upstanding dude, he suffered some serious hecklers on his last night which was a real shame as he should have gone out on a highnote. nRob is extremely tuned in to the nuances and failings of our common nerd culture but he also celebrates our strengths, our passion for life and the common gel that bonds us all together, recommended

Alan Hume, October 2007

Excellent show, well worth it. No encyclopaedic knowledge of geek culture is needed for about 95 per cent of t, but it does help with getting some of the quick off-the-cuff one-liners. Only critisim is that Rob does worry about upsetting his audience and going too geek culture on them. There's a word at the start of the show telling people that if they might not find the show to their tastes in terms of areas covered and then when people leave later on Rob apologises again. Perhaps because the show is free and there's zero control on the audience selecting to go Rob feels he owes them, but if he was a bit more proud of the set and let those who don't like it just get on with life perhaps it would be easier. However that being said my mum who knows nothing about computers, games, or geek culture would get plenty of the jokes so it's well worth your time.

Grant, August 2007

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