Simon Munnery's AGM Review

Munnery presides over his own brand of cerebral yet charming stream of consciousness comedy

★★★★
archive review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
33330 large
100487 original
Published 05 Aug 2007
33329 large
39658 original

Simon Munnery's dress sense alone is tough enough to describe: his attention to madness sits ill at ease with the most basic rules of self-decoration. Such quirkiness, however, is superficial when set against the freqently democratic, always radical comedy of this Fringe staple. Over the last four years Simon Munnery's AGM has garnered a reputation as one of the most subversive and idiosyncratic sets in Edinburgh – "The closest comedy gets to modern art," so one critic has it. And so, in an outfit that could easily have resulted from an inspired smash and grab raid on a charity shop, Munnery presides over his own brand of cerebral yet charming stream-of-consciousness comedy.

His offerings are comedy of a notedly interactive nature: Munnery distributes pens and paper, requiring that the audience “submit motions” for him to address. Today’s proposals range from three-day weekends to assessing the certainty behind Heisenberg‘s theory of uncertainty. Fusing poetry, character comedy and painting, Munnery stretches the format and conventions of live comedy with a varied degree of success.

Whilst not as obviously funny as some other comedians gracing this year's festival, Munnery successfully generates a true intimacy with his audience. Ever the populist, Munnery goes as far as to invite his audience to decide his star rating – but not before offering them a cheeky glass of wine.