thu 14/11/2024

Rob Rouse, Rewind the Fringe review - unstructured but gleeful fun | reviews, news & interviews

Rob Rouse, Rewind the Fringe review - unstructured but gleeful fun

Rob Rouse, Rewind the Fringe review - unstructured but gleeful fun

From fart gags to gendered language

Rob Rouse will shortly be appearing in the West End

It's a pleasure to see Rob Rouse back doing standup, as these days he's as well known for his acting – he plays the idiot savant Bottom in BBC's Upstart Crow, the theatre version of which is opening shortly in the West End after its 2020 premiere run was truncated by Covid.

Rouse performed his latest comedy show, No Refunds, at the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe last month and it's now possible to catch up with it on comedy streamer NextUp, which is running Rewind the Fringe, a week in which it is showing live recordings of shows at the 2022 festival.

Rouse, wearing a shirt a little on the tight side over his new beer belly (“a lockdown gift”) starts the hour by ribbing his new West End thespian status with a fart gag and then tells us to lower our expectations – but there's no need. He is a comic with funny bones and even when a gag goes wrong, it provides a laugh.

He sings a bit, does some characters, tells observational gags and makes use of lots of cheap props as he makes funnies out of such disparate things as home schooling, growing old and gendered language. It's about as unstructured as you can get without being chaotic, but Rouse does it with such warmth and obvious glee that it's catching.

Among the 30-plus performers featured in Rewind the Fringe are Nick Helm, Tony Law and Eleanor Morton.

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters