Tuesday, April 17, 2007
To begin with, McLelland explains that this show is an exercise in his inability to live up to the formidable title. But he's wrong, because the solution IS the show! Yay! Once the indie-pop fades, McLelland soon launches into playing his various selves that have appeared at his last several shows. These include his scheming old man, happy South American, overzealous middle-class fop and various other hilariously-accented roles that allow him to do what he does best (besides excitable arm gestures from the elbow down with a happy face). Somewhat Ambitious... does depend alot on whether you like these roles of his, and, if you're like tonight's audience, you like them immensely, and they do work really well at being trademark funny while illuminating his stories. More personal, less structured and less formal than his other previous (and brilliant) shows, Somewhat Ambitious... doesn't so much aim to educate via spleen-rupturing hilarity as some may have come to expect, more take you through a potted narrative of personal experience and major global issues. It's the uniting of these subjects that makes the show something really special and reinforces McLelland as an unjustly overlooked comedian. This show stays with you after it finishes, both for it's humour and the issues raised, even if some of the solutions are simply funny, and not as transcendent as hoped. When McLelland gets on a rant (which fortunately happens fairly often tonight) it's hard to blink or look away. Fully-formed concepts and priceless allusions fly by as he thunders to the end of one superbly argued rant after another making you are thoroughly glad that this man is fitting himself out as a self-styled gelatocrat. All this and the only man to win on both Rockwiz and Spicks And Specks! Yes, the world is a better place now.
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