Review by Steve Bennett

Michael Workman has been audaciously ambitious with his festival debut, just two years after winning the Raw new act competition.

Embracing a Gabriel García Márquez style of mystical realism, he spins a fable about a walk towards a war-torn city with a spiritually enlightened dog and an arts student cum amateur gravedigger called Penny.

All very strange and arty, granted, but not, perhaps, that auspicious a premise for a comedy show. Yet Workman is a razor-sharp wordsmith, and the hour is packed with exquisitely funny lines, often with an edge of surrealism that never overpowers the core humour. His pretension, such as it is, is worn very lightly indeed.

If you want straightforward observational routines, there’s a few of them here about such topics as old people’s sayings or intimidating late nights in the city, all decorated with superbly evocative descriptions and quirky punchlines. But they sit amid a stylistically wide-ranging show that also includes delightfully kooky drawings, satirically opinionated asides into the likes of religion and the odd musical accompaniment. This is definitely the collision of traditional stand-up with something altogether more profound.

There is a philosophical bent to it all, with ponderings about the fate of war-mongering humanity – or, more trivially, the benefits of dogs – that are occasionally laid on a little thick, but which mostly add to the rich texture of this left-field experience.

It’s not the only thread in which he tries a little too hard but surely better that than the alternative. Workman’s a comic who aims high and hits two times out of three, rather than aiming low and hitting every easy target. For a debutant to be scoring so well with such an unconventional approach demonstrates mighty promise indeed.

His languorously semi-detached delivery adds to slightly other-worldly experience, as indeed does his distinctive physical appearance, with transfixing, startled eyes thick set beneath Jack Nicholson-style eyebrows. His attitude, and his thoughtful imagery, sticks with you long after you’ve left the venue. Impressive stuff, indeed.

Review date: 3 Aug 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett