Review by Steve Bennett

This is satire lite, a well-argued but emotionally restrained essay on some things his homeland could do a bit better, if it would not too much trouble. There’s not so much rage at the atrocities America inflicts in the name of freedom, but disappointment. Tingle is like a liberal parent giving a naughty child a well-meaning ticking off, explaining how he’s only really let himself down.

He’s no Michael Moore, that’s for sure. He attracts an audience distinctly older than the Fringe average who don’t want to be scared by the state at the world nor preached at, they just want their existing liberal concerns reaffirmed, and that’s what he does. There’s no argument or idea here that isn’t already a common consensus – and as such it holds few surprises.

An analogy about stem cell research is nicely done as is a gripe about the disproportionate level of parking fines (yes, not all the targets are as big as George Bush’s interventionist foreign policy), but mostly you’ll have heard this stuff before.

Tingle has a warm, calm delivery. He’s been a long time in this game, including a stint as a commentator on America’s leading current affairs show 60 Minutes back in the day, and certainly knows how to hold the attention.

He takes a gentle, almost storytelling approach to politics, rather than a polemic one. For the most part, this seems a disproportionately weak response to the outrages he is challenging, but it does build to a beautiful climax. Making a heartfelt plea for the US Defense Department to keep tally of the number of Iraqis and Afghans killed, his language becomes poetic and his delivery oratorical. Here, at last, does the softly-softly approach pay dividends, as the significance of his argument is drawn out through calm consideration rather than angry rant.

It is a lovely piece, but just a few minutes in a long show, made even longer by a Q&A afterwards in which Tingle fielded questions about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. All very civilised, but not especially enlightening.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Review date: 1 Jan 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett