FestBuzz

What: Glenn Wool
Where: Underbelly’s Hul­la­baloo
When: until the 31st of August, 21:45 every night
How much: £10-£15

In 140 char­ac­ters or fewer: “One man Cana­dian wreck­ing spree tells us why the world is going to hell in a hilar­i­ous hour of scream­ing and ridicu­lous facial expressions”

Cana­dian exports to Britain have been a bit lim­ited over the years: Celine Dion, oil and gas and, dare I say it, club­bing. Wool has never been con­sid­ered a top export, until now.

In Glenn Wool, Canada has a mis­placed off­spring worth scream­ing about. Hav­ing lived in Britain for the last ten years, Wool can quite com­fort­ably avoid the trite mate­r­ial com­par­ing the two sides of the Atlantic which blights so many North Amer­i­can come­di­ans attempt­ing to cap­ti­vate Edin­burgh audiences.

From the first minute of his set, Wool had the crowd in the kind of stitches only caused by the most inap­pro­pri­ate of unscripted jokes. Befriend­ing a lonely crowd mem­ber is one thing, but find­ing out she was only 16 year old led to a hasty retreat and much hilar­ity all around the small but per­fectly formed com­edy set.

Wool car­ries him­self in a dis­arm­ing man­ner; dress­ing like some rejected off­spring of Jack Black, it takes only a few sec­onds to realise this is a ruse behind which lurks a fear­some intel­li­gence. Top­ics range from sex­ual eti­quette, the rea­sons why poor peo­ple should never, ever be lent money (vodka and socks) and why we should fun­da­men­tally dis­trust any­one in a suit. This is all set against tales of his Moun­tie father and bears being knocked out with one punch.

Wool’s great­est asset is his act­ing skills. He can play any role required in order to gain a laugh. He can make an every­day state­ment into a superb piece of com­edy with the kind of eye­brow lift which would make wrestling super­star The Rock extremely proud.

To begin with, Wool puts him­self on the line in an hon­est, self dep­re­cat­ing and often hilar­i­ous man­ner. It is only when he departs into sto­ries of why the wider world is in great peril that he really ups the tempo. This man can scream. At times, his voice edges dan­ger­ously close to Zed from Police Acad­emy 2. When he screams though, the audi­ence roars in approval. He has angst in his soul but the set would be ster­ile with­out it.

If you seek a bible class on how to live an hon­est, decent and depraved life out­side of the cor­po­rate sys­tem which has brought the world econ­omy to its knees, then Wool is your man. Always angry, but simul­ta­ne­ously endear­ing, his mes­sage is clear – “The most trust­wor­thy peo­ple I know don’t wear suits, they wear Iron Maiden T-shirts”.

A dude with a brain and a hell of a lot of issues, Glenn Wool is not to be missed.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Ste­vie Kearney