Commanding the room with his soft presence, Vittorio Angelone kicks off his ‘improvised’ hour of stand-up, ‘Off the Cuff,’ with a reminder that the show is not classical ‘improv’ because, as Angelone writes on his white board, ‘Improv is for c–ts.’ He gives the audience four buckets to place our inspirational nuggets into — Dating, ‘Am I the Asshole,’ Filth, and A Bit Heavy.

What follows is an hour of expert crowd work, meaning that there are a couple of lulls, but there are also some of the biggest laughs possible. One of the most memorable bits is when a woman recounts how a fight broke out at her uncle’s funeral, which is somehow in the ‘Filth’ bucket. This leads to several well-connected gags throughout the show as Angelone often refers back to the woman at opportune and well-timed moments.

Of course, every night is different, which is the joy of a show like ‘Off the Cuff.’ Angelone’s biggest fans may buy tickets every night, knowing that no two nights will be the same. Another way he mixes it up is by bringing a different comedic pal onstage for the last bit of the show — at least once he brought Mike Rice, who gets a shoutout in this particular show when a woman shared, ‘Mike Rice made me laugh so hard I got my period.’ Naturally, this led to some particularly amusing riffs from Angelone.

But during this iteration of ‘Off the Cuff,’ Angelone brings Ed Night onstage. While some fans might be hesitant to jump on board with any of Angelone’s guests, preferring to just see the Northern Irish man of many punchlines himself, Night and Angelone’s chemistry is well worth the show’s last 15 minutes. Between shy heckles and callbacks to earlier crowd moments, some even referenced by Night who wasn’t yet onstage at the time, ‘Off the Cuff’ has the potential to be one of the best shows at the Fringe. 

But Angelone only has so much control in this format — every show is at least somewhat dependent on the audience. Luckily, he knows how to take a seed of an idea and grow it into a garden. In ‘Off the Cuff,’ Angelone puts his garden (and how he grows it) on full display for all to see. And regardless of how fruitful the seeds are, his charisma and likeability create a dependable and joyous night of comedy.

‘Off the Cuff‘ is at Monkey Barrel 1 until Sun 25 Aug 2024 at 22:25