Showing @ Assembly Hall, Edinburgh until Mon 25 Aug (not 6, 11, 18) @ 15:30
As if there’s not enough stand-up on the Fringe, now Simon Callow is recreating his 1976 one-man show (there’s a slight whiff of mothballs). The hugely gifted Callow – actor, biographer, raconteur and all-round clever clogs – takes Juvenal, the Roman satirist who lived during the fall of Rome, as his non-PC inspiration. There is a wealth of scabrous material to wade through: prostitutes, rent boys, binge vomitors, corrupt politicians, tax-dodgers, the self-indulgent new rich and it’s all incredibly topical 2000 years after it was first written. In Callow’s hands (and that fruity voice) this stand-up is in contrast to modern-day yackityyack routines. It requires a lot of intelligent listening on the part of the audience and it’s great fun but don’t expect too many bellylaughs (the humour here is wry and artful). Who but Callow – channeling comics Dave Allen and Mort Sahl – could get his tongue so deliciously round ‘blasphemous vices’ and mother-in-law jokes.