Naz Osmanoglu: 1000% Awesome

Perhaps an odd point, but your tendency to use the word "awesome" may well correlate directly to your enjoyment of Naz Osmanoglu’s show. Heck, we all slip it out now and again, but the Americanism recurs most often among the adolescents in the audience, and it is certainly this same demographic who are most drawn to the charismatic Osmanoglu, bantering back at him and gushing as they leave. 

The monolith of masculinity Osmanoglu’s Turkish father beset him with is 1000% Awesome’s outsized inspiration. Spotlit in its massive shadow the young standup gives an assured if cartoonish performance for his Fringe solo debut, supported by the set’s strong writing. A marvelous trivia bite that Osmanoglu is 19th in line to Turkey’s deposed throne is served with the slick simile: “Like working for MI6, but in catering.”

Empires, beards and kebabs are all duly mentioned but 1000% Awesome also takes less predictable tangents through Osmanoglu’s past emasculations – Amsterdam sex shows and muggings. The ballet of physical comedy animating Bear Grylls that won him 2009’s Amused Moose Laugh-Off is perfected to the boyish glee of the front row.

When his aggressively thematic material eventually lags, Osmanoglu riffs off props in surreal interludes that turn out to be the set’s best asset. Did he make a bet to see how many laughs he could mangle out of a sweaty hand towel? If he did, he won it. In fact, Osmanoglu’s one-note persona wins everything.