Writer: Damien Warren-Smith
Director: Cal McCrystal
Emperor penguins’ shortish treks between sea and nesting sites are about as peripatetic as your average Thameslink commuter. Garry Starr: Classic Penguins arrives at the Arts Theatre with considerably more air miles, having justifiably picked up multiple comedy awards in Australia and enjoyed sell-out runs at Soho Theatre, Underbelly Boulevard and the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Arts feels just the right size for this kind of show: not so intimate that the (sometimes quite literally) in-your-face nudity becomes uncomfortable, yet small enough to make the audience complicit in its off-beat transgressions and hefty dose of audience interaction. Do we really need a naked Australian, Basil Fawlty look-alike, riffing on the absurdities of our respect for classics of the Western literary canon while throwing grapes (and subsequently oranges) at a complicit audience member? The Grapes of Wrath, in case you are wondering. Perhaps not, but there is something deliciously cathartic about watching a hugely talented performer take on West End cultural conventions with nothing more than a top hat, a neck ruff, and penguin flippers.
A consideration of Wind In The Willows invites a none-too-subtle fart joke. The Communist Manifesto depicts the naked Starr (the creation of Scot’s born-Australian comedian and clown Damien Warren-Smith) shimmying between the aisles, collecting coins in his top hat. Breakfast At Tiffany’s takes Henry Mancini’s Moon River quite literally with hefty, gratuitous mooning. Brideshead Revisited is a cleverly concealed piece of absurdist clowning.
The highlight? Having dispatched The Invisible Man on a crowd surfing adventure from the stage to the rear of the auditorium, Starr speculates whether he might be able to do the same thing. What happens next is a comic coup de theatre, though from below it feels more like an unsolicited anatomy lesson. Beneath all this chaos, there is some very clever satire at work. Delivering a naked Hamlet soliloquy to the words of Bohemian Rhapsody makes a pithy point about our default tendency to sanctify Shakespeare over other art forms.
It has to be said, there is nothing salacious about Starr’s state of undress, or indeed that of the other 11 naked people we get to see over the space of 65 minutes (including one brave, or foolhardy, audience member). Aside from fart gags, nothing in the comedy would justify the show’s 18+ rating. Indeed, the jokes would be equally funny if Starr were fully dressed in a top hat and tails.
What the nudity adds, in spades, is an ongoing, palpable sense of tension. At times, you wonder just how far Starr will go in testing the comfort levels of his audience invitees. Stick to the circle seats if you would rather watch. If you can bear it, sit at the front of the stalls: you will probably end up involved. Choose this over Choir of Men (also at The Arts Theatre) any day of the week.
Runs until 14 December 2025
