Fringe veteran Reginald D Hunter returns once again with a show that combines outrageous humour with stories on his past twenty-one years in the UK as well as his family and upbringing in Georgia.
Whilst Hunter’s purely controversial routines gain the biggest laughs and groans from the audience, such as his bizarre dream involving him in a canoe with such illustrious celebrities such as Katie Price and O. J. Simpson that caused walkouts when he told it in Ireland, it’s his personal anecdotes about his family that truly demonstrate his skill at intertwining his storytelling ability with his capacity to shock and surprise, which can be seen in his anecdotes about his religious sister handling a phone pervert and his mother’s unconventional relationship with the white women she worked for.
Hunter also addresses Brexit in his own idiosyncratic way, explaining the former to his 99 year old father in terms of lottery tickets, as well as providing a similar approach when he moves onto the issues tearing America apart, providing a darkly-funny manifesto for his hypothetical presidency that features a novel approach to stopping gun crime. This last area allows Hunter to branch off into a detailed story about filming his latest BBC documentary that hilariously highlights the British underestimation of Deep South racism as well as providing a mental image of Hunter dressed in a Confederate uniform.
An American Facing The Beast and Niggas (and yes, Hunter once again does go into his use of the dreaded ‘N-word’ in the title) is another successful blending of anecdotes and dark humour from a comedian who has been doing this for long enough now that it seems effortless. Hunter manages to inform, entertain and offend in equal measures whilst keeping the audience on his side for the entirety of the show, which is evident from the thunderous applause he received at the end.