Brighton Fringe review: James Veitch | The Fundamental Interconnectedness of Everyone with an Internet Connection

Brighton Fringe review: James Veitch

Note: This review is from 2014

The Fundamental Interconnectedness of Everyone with an Internet Connection

Ignore the artsy, highfalutin title – this is simply what happened when James Veitch responded to various online scammers.

It's a frivolous sport that many with time on their hands might have indulged in. Indeed, one American comic, Dean Cameron, engaged first-hand with the criminal gangs behind the amusingly ungrammatical emails for his show Nigerian Spam Scam Scam a decade or so ago.

But Veitch's engagement extends only to being a keyboard prankster, who strings along the would-be fraudsters by playing along with their phoney scenarios, adding his own nonsensical twists. Thus he poses as a medical doctor who advises Goldman Sachs advisor, or invents a literally pint-sized mutual acquaintance, testing the patience of the conmen who think they might have found their mark.

He has most fun with those who try the 'marooned friend' scam, when he gets a message from a genuine pal's hacked email account that they are in trouble and need a couple of grand to get out of it. Since they are alleged friends, Veitch can imagine all manner of preposterous back stories, as he wittily reports here.

All the correspondence is shown on a screen, so audiences tend to spend the hour reading as much as listening. And with both the PowerPoint and internet theme, comparisons with Dave Gorman are almost inevitable. Indeed, Veitch often adopts the same tone of semi-nerdish common-sense incredulity, which only underlines the similarities.

It's entertaining frippery, but ultimately a little unrewarding since every story ends, unresolved, with an '…and that's when the emails stopped' when the fraudster twigs that the jig is up. There's also a feeling that this is a one-trick show, as there are only so many alternate versions of the email exchanges – although a couple of non-scam-related stories add a touch of variety and a few extra laughs, especially his reason for being chucked off Guardian Soulmates.

Still there are some amusing running jokes and the show – still clearly something of a work in progress – is all tied up in a neat conclusion when Veitch turns the tables and tries more explicitly to scam the scammers, who turn out to be more gullible and greedy than most of their targets.

Review by: Steve Bennett

Review date: 5 May 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

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