Tobias Persson: Sitting On A Cornflake
Live Review

Due credit to Swedish comic Tobias Persson for keeping his cool with the giddy girls on the front row of this gig. They were harmless enough but incredibly irritating, oohing and wolf whistling at random points.

Supremely distracting for the rest of us but Persson only deigned them the briefest of attention and that was largely to try to shut them up. He didn't succeed but thankfully they didn't derail the show.

It did however serve to display his stand-up experience, with an assured presence and an easy-going style. It's even more impressive when you consider that he's only been doing gigs in English for two years, although he's been performing comedy in his native Sweden since 2001.

Mastering a language to the extent that you can tell jokes in it is always impressive. Persson speaks English almost like a native with only the slightest of accents and with the full range of swear words sprinkled throughout his set.

The premise of the show poses the question what is art? The song lyric in the title, ‘sitting on a cornflake’ from The Beatles I Am The Walrus is an example, it’s surreal but is it art? Like many Fringe shows it's a flexible theme that allows him to incorporate a wide range of topics.

There's a great gag here as he ponders Hitler's attempted genocide of the Jews being a dictation error. He’s bemused by hip-hop posturing and modern jazz, suggests there’s little different between a Fringe show and a mugging and is gobsmacked about the Italian performance artist who was booked to open the Stockholm Opera House by peeing on the stage.

Off topic, he drifts away to talk about religion. It's a cheeky diversion but it's a good one and it's here we find some of his most interesting material. It's a common-sense atheist viewpoint with such suggestions as installing an atheist room as well as a prayer one at airports. Plus it allows him to segue into a couple of songs on his tiny guitar and serenade us with songs about religion and circumcision. Nor is he afraid to incorporate his own 'walrus' moments with a Catholic church/ducks analogy, and evoking the image of a gay giraffe licking a tree.

Overall the humour isn't riotous, you find yourself smiling rather than laughing alou, but it is a pleasantly insightful hour.