Eric Lampaert and Rob Heeney

Eric Lampaert, the first act at tonight’s Pleasance Cabaret show, has a website which emphasises his ‘unusual’ and ad lib night of laughs. This, however, does not do his 100 mile-per-hour act justice. This man is off-the-wall and a pleasure to watch. Granted one doesn’t get a set which has been tried and tested across Europe, but what he does bring to the table is a frankly refreshing form of on-the-spot humour.

It was quite apparent he had very little material cocked, locked and ready to rock; he chose rather to play off the reaction from the audience and immerse himself in his own aura of bizarre insanity involving monologues of mind-boggling ridiculousness. Many of the laughs originated from the sheer intensity of his performance; however this should not detract from the originality of his impromptu comedic talent.

The following act, Robert Heeney, exhibited a much steadier form of comedy, which also had a greater impact. Despite looking deceptively young, Heeney is in fact 40 years old. This entirely justified his slightly jaded and cynical side-splitting anecdotes about man’s natural distrust of his fellow man, until said man asks if he’d like a drink and regales him with a story of drunkenly mistaking a wardrobe for a lavatory.

When Heeney took the stage the first thing he did was move the microphone off-stage, instantly creating a far more amicable and intimate atmosphere, inviting the audience not just to be silent witnesses to his routine, but to feel as if each and every member was being spoken to. His set cannot be praised highly enough. It was steadily paced and calculating, sweating out every laugh from his captive audience. A resounding thumbs up to the Cabaret Bar for yet another enjoyable line-up.