Choosing a stand up comedian to go and see is very different from choosing theatre. With theatre, you’re thinking about what kind of shows you like, whether it’s serious or humorous, romantic or thrilling, who wrote it, who’s producing it and who’s appearing in it. With stand up you’re only really thinking, “will it be funny, or not?” Lawrence Leung’s Sceptic is slightly different.
Rather than being straight stand up, Sceptic has a strong theme and is presented more as a show. The set has all the trimmings of a seminar; the laptop, the overhead projector, the giant sized notepad on a stand. And Leung is something of a lecturer - projector remote control in pocket, giant marker to go with the giant notepad. Except that he’s also a comedian.
This is Leung’s pitch - people are obsessed with the paranormal. Starting from The X-Files and moving to Charmed, our TV and cinema are full of it. It’s basically a part of popular culture to believe in everything from aliens to psychics to ghosts. Leung is, of course, a sceptic. He doesn’t believe in any of these things and he’s set out to prove himself right or wrong, while at the same time, making a show.
This is the result. Leung bounds on stage, bottle of water in hand, the image of a stand up, and he talks. He tells us facts and figures about ghosts, and he tells us jokes about his mom. It’s liking flicking through the channels on your TV, one minute you’re on the Discovery channel, the next you’re watching Paramount. Surprisingly it kind of works.
Leung is energetic, playful, fervently earnest, one of those instantly likeable people. And it is stand up, so all you really need to know is the answer to the all important question, which in this case is yes.
4/5
Brid-Aine Conway
