Trading off slapstick comedy and the fact that it’s okay to make racist jokes if you’re an ethnic minority, especially if they’re about yourselves, the Naked Samoans show is ideally timed and located for big success this summer.
Upon St. Peters refusal to admit them to heaven (”he’s just an overrated bouncer”) the Samoans are shown the waste that their lives have been through a Ghost of Christmas Past vision of several generations of their family. Several of these are excerpts from previous shows, thrown in for good measure, and although the sketches often don’t tie up, the five performers are on and off stage like a wrestling tag match, delivering a speedy, high lpm (laughs per minute) reel of scenarios.
The humour is undoubtedly southern hemisphere in origin - Tongans, Maoris, Indians and Ozzies all come under their fair share of fire - but the light hearted xenophobia translates well to a Saturday night in Edinburgh. The Samoan brand of humour, however, knows no such geographical boundaries, and their crimes against heaven include closet homosexuality, alcoholism, personal hygiene, knob jokes and awkward teen love. Add to that the occasional plagiarism of song lyrics, the best dance routine of the Gilded Balloon and a wicked double twist of sincerity minutes from the end, and the result is late evening fringe comedy at its best. See it.
4/5
Simon Ferguson
