If there were only one reason for watching this performance it would be the Flag Hippo sketch. I came across it on Youtube, and it led me to buy the DVD, for next to nothing. Flag Hippo is comic manna, and I find it unbelievably funny. I must have watched it 50 times, and it never fails to make me laugh. Like other miracles, it defies explanation. Perhaps it's the timing, perhaps it's the body language, perhaps it's the infinite originality and spectacular silliness of its conception; but somehow it transcends this kind of futile analysis. Perhaps one has to be British fully to savour its immaculate perfection.
Tim Vine's act otherwise basically consists of telling paralysingly stupid, clean, one- or two-line jokes, relentlessly. The audience reaction to these becomes multi-layered. Not many of the jokes are actually very funny, but the first layer consists of laughing at some of them. The next layer consists of laughing at them just because they are so bad. Another layer consists of laughing at those who are laughing at them. Then one starts to laugh at oneself for laughing at all. Finally one laughs at Tim Vine for thinking he could get away with this ridiculous collection, and his simple-minded reliance on a non-stop procession of puns. In the end the entire audience in a jam-packed theatre is doubled up, almost killing themselves, expiring with hilarity at the wholesale idiocy of their situation.
I've docked one star, because it is just possible that the experience may eventually start to pall.
Tim Vine's act otherwise basically consists of telling paralysingly stupid, clean, one- or two-line jokes, relentlessly. The audience reaction to these becomes multi-layered. Not many of the jokes are actually very funny, but the first layer consists of laughing at some of them. The next layer consists of laughing at them just because they are so bad. Another layer consists of laughing at those who are laughing at them. Then one starts to laugh at oneself for laughing at all. Finally one laughs at Tim Vine for thinking he could get away with this ridiculous collection, and his simple-minded reliance on a non-stop procession of puns. In the end the entire audience in a jam-packed theatre is doubled up, almost killing themselves, expiring with hilarity at the wholesale idiocy of their situation.
I've docked one star, because it is just possible that the experience may eventually start to pall.
