Japanese Terminatol: Fringe 2012
Live Review
Laughing Horse @ The White Horse

This show is like being trapped in a Tokyo pachinko parlour. It’s full of noise, action and excitement, even if you’re not sure what’s going on.

When grilled by UK Borders staff at immigration, Hiroshi Shimizu was asked to explain what sort of comedy he did. ‘Energetic’ he said, not having the vocabulary or the presence of mind to come up with anything more descriptive. After more than 12 years reviewing comedy, I’m not sure I could do much better for this baffling, but endearingly entertaining performer.

He is a force of nature, for sure. Appearing, perhaps in honour of the Olympics, in a velour tracksuit in fetching Easyjet/Guantanamo orange, he’s a fizzing ball of smiling, friendly enthusiasm who exerts a mesmerising pull. When he struggles with the language, you want to help, so become drawn into his routines that largely trade on national stereotypes.

Some of this is fairly ropey stuff, to be honest, and he’s certainly better when he doesn’t try to do too many jokes and instead just sticks to being himself, or showing off his excellent physicality. Yet he has a naivety to our quirks of speech that generates some original trains of thought. After all, why do we call a penis a dick?

He calls his, his taato, and is a little bit obsessed with it. He wants British women to know that even if Japanese men have a reputation for being too shy ‘we want to fuck you, sincerely’.

Much of his thinking is hard to follow, and when you do understand, it’s not always edifying – there was a strange skit about a bank robber catching a glimpse of a hostage’s panties that opens up a whole world of twisted, repressed sexuality we possibly don’t want to know about, or needs to be better explained. It’s a good job the mania is so compelling, and we can move on.

His mispronunciation of ‘l’ and ‘r’ in English is a recurring theme, which explains – almost – the title and ends up with a rousing chorus of Hey Jude that really ought to have been in Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony.

It’s all so wonderfully bonkers, despite all its ups and downs, that it becomes a unique Fringe experience… and isn’t that what we’re all here seeking?