★★★★☆
20 minutes into MC Hammersmith’s Monkey Barrel fringe show he a) recognised the name of the second tallest mountain in Mexico (Popocatépetl) and b) found a rhyme for it.
If that’s the kind of thing you’d find deeply impressive (and if nothing else the pace and energy of this one-man improv show is impressive) then this is exactly the show for you. An action-packed hour of impressive improv memory tricks and a Rolodex-like ability to recall passages from a rhyming dictionary, MC Hammersmith’s show is a riotously entertaining – if self-consciously very uncool – set.
There is a reason that improv shows more commonly include a bunch of cast members, and part of that is to minimise the risk of a single performer running out of ideas. In that way MC Hammersmith is exceptionally impressive, never dropping a single rhyme and packing enough jokes into his hip-hop monologues to ensure the hour he’s on stage absolutely whizzes by.
Credit: MC Hammersmith
There’s an understandable amount of repetition involved – never before have you heard a man say “yeah that’s right” so many times in an hour – but for the most part the speed at which Naameh finds rhymes for the most unlikely suggestions is pretty remarkable. Even in the emerging genre of hip-hop improv the pace is very impressive.
Hammersmith pulls plenty of tricks to keep the audience engaged, too. From the surprisingly heartwarming (recreating a couple’s meet-cute story) to the alarmingly physical (rapping while three strangers lift him into a somersault), each ‘game’ nicely differentiates itself from the last. Ample use of auto-tune and a couple of different beat tracks even throw a limited bit of musical variety into the mix.
An hour feels like the perfect length for Hammersmith’s musical japes, too. Just as the novelty starts to fade, the show comes to an end, like the world’s longest, most impressive party trick.
MC Hammersmith: Straight Outta Brompton runs at Monkey Barrel Comedy until 27 August. Check out the rest of our Edinburgh Festival Fringe coverage here.
