Just the Tonic at The Caves
Aug 16-18, 20-25
13:05
Ben Miller is like your favorite tutor at college – the one who has decided that making the kids laugh is the best way to disseminate knowledge throughout the class. Today’s lecture, then, would be all about volcanoes, especially the one’s on Hawai’i, to which exotic archipelago Ben was sent as an artist-in-residence – & his art being stand-up comedy.
His task was to write a show in a month to entertain a bunch of old folk on the island, the bulk of which materielle form’d the lifeblood of his fringe show, Volcano. His baby possesses a cumulative effect – all the material kinda feeds & bleeds into each other. While watching ‘Volcano’ I got the feeling the crowd really loved him, probably down to him effortlessly bouncing personalized comedy balls off differing individuals from time to time.
Baking is a very forgiving medium because you can eat your mistakes
Ben’s power point was his comedy partner, presenting us with many a witty visual gag, such as cladding a volcano in ladies swimwear to make it ‘hotter.’ On the whole, these gags were a tad childish, but Ben totally manages to bring that silly side out of us, & we were all bouncing along to his quirky stylistic. My favorite gag was his recognition that, as pineapples take 18 months to come to fruit, if humans stayed in the womb for twice as long, would we also come out as pineapples – an untested, but absolutely plausible theory that I’d never encounter’d before!
Overall Ben is a lovely lad & I really warm’d to him – not only as an audience member, but also by leaving the room a much wiser man, having gained a brief but perfectly deliver’d lesson in magma chambers, the difference between Hawaian volcanoes & Mount Vesuvius, quantum gravimeters, & even a splattering of Hawian mythology. I’m always happy to learn, like, & Ben does a fantastic job of getting the facts across, & making us laugh at the same time! A real & rare treat.
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