At one point during his sold-out Edinburgh Fringe show “You can’t Say Nothing anymore”, Irish comic Vittorio Angelone says he recently took a trip to the Middle East, “sorting it all out”.
At certain points during the show, it does feel as if Angelone, through his commitment to serious unseriousness, does actually come close to healing not just the sectarian divide, but prejudice writ large.
Prejudice is the name of the game for Angelone, the unspeakable is unearthed, no one is safe from his ire; his prejudice is universal – an ironic misanthropy that intoxicates and compels.
This is a constant, challenging, and sometimes intellectual tightrope, but Angelone pulls off it off with agility, despite coming close to teetering off the side on multiple occasions.
One American in the audience is used as the “focal point for ignorance in the crowd”, his personal trainer is a total idiot – “one of the last true numskulls” – and he walks the line with wisecracks about both catholics, journalists, Englishmen, and Presbyterianism.
It’s a challenging atmosphere for a comedy show, but Angelone has the audience in the palm of his hand as he continually ups the ante.
This is especially true given the subject of the show: The Troubles.
Angelone’s Italian father and Irish mother had never discussed the troubles with him until he started asking some uncomfortable questions, uncomfortable questions that came with some surprisingly relaxed and hilarious answers.
Any questions about how well his material and taste for controversy, honed online, would translate are immediately dispelled by his wiry, elusive stage present.
Angelone dances around his subject matter, and although his political alignment is clear, the Irishman is never preachy.
When the show – which is nearing the end of its shelf-life after running for more more than a year – threatens to get bogged down, Angelone sidesteps, cracks wise, and assures his audience it was all in their heads.
Gerry Adams is placed in the spotlight and then knocked over, the IRA and UVF are ridiculous entities, holes are poked in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
The trick does wear a bit thin with the Israel-Palestine material, however, and some of the jokes feel undercooked and turgid.
The show – which had a limited run at Assembly Hall – is a bewildering and fascinating experience for most of its runtime.
Angelone shows himself as a pre-eminent master of murky comedy, comedy that feels slightly wrong, comedy that is challenging, comedy that is ultimately enlightening.
His great victory is that the offensive, the tactless, becomes hilarious, and his triumphant cheekiness makes it difficult to imagine anybody being truly offended at the material.
Any complaints, as Angelone tells the audience should be directed to “your local MP”.
