Randy is Sober

Randy is sober. And for 13 months he's been trying to get healthy and perform a teetotal one-puppet-show.

Randy is alive. Animated and with a tendency to fly off into purple prose, he’s an engaging presence on stage. Heath McIvor’s puppetry is totally convincing, particularly in the small moments between routines. When he loses his train of thought, you can see Randy’s eyes glaze over, despite them literally being glazed.

Randy is easy to talk to. Perhaps for the same reason police interview children using sock puppets, audiences open up to Randy. His easy back and forth underscores McIvor’s improvisational skills, helps sell Randy as real and puts the room at ease. This does have its drawbacks. At the performance reviewed, drunk audience members felt comfortable enough to keep noisily leaving and re-entering the theatre. It didn’t help that Randy couldn’t actually see them disappear.

Randy is a bit lazy. With his nice plaid shirt and familiar routines on dieting and pornography, you forget Randy isn’t any other comedian. If he weren’t made of cloth, his observational stories would be unexceptional, although the novelty factor means they draw big laughs. When he tries for more nuance, often through a longer setup, he seems worried about losing the crowd. The audience sometimes exerts undue influence, and you wish Randy could cut the strings and be his own man.

These aren’t major flaws. Overall, Randy is a puppet that wished hard enough, and became a real live comedian. Apart from anything else, Randy is funny.