ALEXIS Dubus has been on the comedy scene since 1999, flirting with big names on The John Bishop Show, C4’s Derek starring Ricky Gervais, and Sky Atlantic’s Set List.
Taking home the Chortle Award last year, he’s been praised by critics the nation over, deemed “uniquely funny” by the Scotsman.
Odd then that Dubus’s false start to his set at the Great Yorkshire Fringe should prove symptomatic of the act as a whole. Alexis Dubus Vs The World was very much hit and miss, a mixture of verse, stand-up and improv; verbal and physical comedy. Its biggest success lay in its ridiculousness, with stories of flatulent massage therapists in Singapore and encounters with strange folk in Perth earning hearty laughs.
Alexis Dubus: "“Never confuse shampoo with champagne”
Dubus shocked most by removing his green velvet suit and tux-print T-shirt in front of the astonished crowd of 30-or-so gathered in the tiny Tea Pot, donning a fedora and then re-dressing, before launching into a Sinatra-esque swing number beginning “Never confuse shampoo with champagne”.
While these whacky digressions provided flavour, this was to compensate for Dubus’s material sometimes lacking bite. A lot of his anecdotes felt a little been-there-done-that: lamenting the life of a comic; mocking "racist" Australians and "stupid" Americans; suffering existential crises; deliberately missing the punchline.
Alexis Dubus Vs The World didn’t fall flat, but it was nothing spectacular. It transpires Dubus’s early anecdote: “A critic walks in […] to give you 3 stars” was spookily prophetic.
Review by Amy Gibbons
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