Marcel Lucont – Encore [FringeTIX]
Marcel Lucont @ The Tuxedo Cat – Rooftop
8:45pm, Sun 21 Feb 2010
I loved Marcel Lucont’s show last year – it was exactly the right show at the right time with the right audience. It was piss-yourself funny and left me indebted to Lucont forever.
This year, it’s a couple of hours earlier in the evening, and the crowd… oh dear.
They weren’t into it. At all.
And that’s a massive shame – because Lucont is still a magnificently realised character, aloof and arrogant. And charming, in a horribly acidic kind of way. Because he’s the misanthrope (a kindred spirit!) we all hate to love… but love him we do, despite his threads of humour which weave back and forth across That Line.
But, with a longer set, Lucont is forced to delve into time-sucking stories (ostensibly taken from his autobiography, Moi) – and these ruin the pacing of the show. Still funny, mind you… but out of place. The unresponsive crowd didn’t exactly help this evening, either – I get the feeling that one good heckler would’ve made all the difference, allowing Marcel to cut them down with confident disdain, getting the audience onside, and rolling from there.
I really think Marcel Lucont is a great impact comedian, perfectly suited to the half-hour-or-shorter set. That’s not to say this show is bad, by any means – it’s just that prolonged exposure to his style gets a little numbing after awhile. By all means, check him out if he’s not had the pleasure before.