Original Review:

But it’s not so much the character he’s adopted – he just seems to like the look. Rather than being an over-the-top caricature like Lenny Beige, Clark is simply a comic with some gags that work and some that don’t. But it’s possible that he sees the outfit as some sort of ironic protection for those lines that fail… they can be attributed to the ‘character’, not him.

And quite a lot of the gags don’t work. Rather too many, in fact, for comfort. To his credit, he is trying to be distinctive, never once threatening to go down an obvious route, but when you cannot be sure whether you’re watching a parody of a bad comic, or simply a bad comic, you’re on very dodgy territory.

The joke is often that the gag isn’t funny. So he’ll have meandering anecdotes that lead nowhere or a literal deconstruction of the song There’s A Hole In My Bucket that peters away to nothing. Occasionally this approach will hit paydirt – his misinterpretation of the maxim ‘it’s funny because it’s true’ for example – but equally often it just leads to the uncomfortable sniggers of bewilderment.

Other moments of silliness are briefer, and again the strike rate is inconsistent, but at least they demand less investment from an audience. And some of these moments, such as his career as a silhouette mode are as funny as they are original.

It’s easy to see Clark as a comedians’ comedian, because he is so flagrant in flouting the conventions of stand-up. But while that’s admirable, more laughs would be better still. Some nice ideas, but needs more work.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Melbourne, April 2007