Review of the cult favourite's mainstream outing, by Jay Richardson

How do you retain the chaotic spirit and upstart cultishness of a show like Stamptown when it lands on the world's biggest streaming platform?

That's the challenge facing Zach Zucker and his collaborators in bringing the celebrated night of clown, cabaret and burlesque to Netflix, taking anarchy mainstream as the production crowns its ten-year anniversary with this statement recording.

Zucker, as his sweatily desperate alter-ego Jack Tucker, is always master of ceremonies and controlled misrule – yet Stamptown's strength remains in the collective.

And while there's necessarily a sense of greatest hits to this hour-long recording, with familiar faces reprising signature routines, beer chugs and confetti cannons to the crotch, there's unquestionably a thrill in seeing so many acts from the freakier and geekier end of the performance spectrum on the usually staid streaming giant, their presence and rampant nudity a palate cleanse for the more toxic elements of one-millionaire-and-a-mic conventional stand-up.

Mind you, if Matt Rife has the piss ripped out of him, that's as nothing compared to the lampooning of one of rival Amazon's ad campaigns, with 'clown boss' Chad Damiani getting a recurring, mock-heroic turn that affords the show a bit of heart, almost in spite of itself.

The special has been spliced together from three performances at the Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles in May, though you really wouldn't know it. Director Rachel Lee Goldenberg and co-creator-turned-editor Dylan Woodley have largely kept the pace of the live show through snappy cuts, camera shots presented from onstage amid the pratfalls and occasional cutaways foregrounding the editing process itself.

Viggo Venn's high vis routine is surely familiar to just about everyone now thanks to Britain's Got Talent, so its false endings and rhythmic reprises get fed through a montage sequence. Later, a sped-up sequence of the ensemble charging through the theatre turns into pure Benny Hill chase, with an approximation of the Yakety Sax tune.

As with Venn's appearance, with the Daft Punk ditched, some music rights issues seem to be in play. But they're part of a bigger gag that has Tucker pleading poverty over the show's budget, exemplified by a celebrity appearance seemingly reduced to a cameo. And that's even as highly skilled and choreographed physical artistes weave in and out, slip and slide through whizz-bang pyrotechnics, with the whole production deceptively, impressively slick.

So what are the highlights? Courtney Pauroso's sex robot Vanessa 5000 still feels edgy, not least when she pulls a volunteer up from the front row, with the frisson of clown consent being sought for physical touch; similarly, Natalie Palamides emergence as a bloodied baby from Riki Lindhome's womb, delivering off-colour stand-up from the umbilical cord, prompting Tucker to a sickly abortion gag. And Martin Urbano, whose dry, unsmilingly hilarious commentary on proceedings in his guise as a dismissive critic has the added bonus of affording his fellow performers a namecheck.

Elsewhere, BriTANick, Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher, get to carry the final quarter of the show with their frustrated attempts to deliver a 'straight' sketch amidst the bedlam; Ikechukwu Ufomadu is his usual urbane and self-amused self, briefly reflecting on his own time as a baby, while a cartwheeling Garry Starr, unencumbered by clothes, provides just one of several blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos, the lengthy cast list in the credits revealing a number of notable acts reduced to the status of background artist.

Finally, it's Jordan Gray who gets the plum closing spot, her balls-out appearance having been presaged by the antics of vaudevillian husband and wife duo Daredevil Chicken earlier in the piece.

As with Venn, British viewers will no doubt have a feeling of repackaged goods here from her performance of the faux-arrogant song Better Than You, which caused such a stir on Channel 4's Friday Night Live all the way back in 2022.

But the trans comic's unfortunate similarities to Russell Brand have since taken on a darker edge. And it's a suitable showstopper for a production encompassing myriad off-kilter talents and manic exhibitionism, while feeling like a provocative expression of diversity in Trump's blandifying America.

Published: 30 Aug 2026