David Quirk: Cowboy Mouth

★★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
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Published 16 Aug 2017
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Cowboy Mouth at first glance appears to be low key. It's a quiet Monday and Quirk mentions at one point it might be the last show he does. Having lowered expectations he then pulls out of the bag one of his typical, highly structured yet touched with both whimsy and magic, little gems of a show.

Though he plays big venues back home in Australia it's hard to imagine him in anywhere other than the cosy, familiar environs of the upstairs of Bob's bus. Beginning with the recording of a woman describing a dream she once had about Quirk, the dreams begin to echo reality. Quirk is constantly toying with structure, as seemingly unrelated stories criss cross. He opens with a pleasing repetition in a story about falling off his skateboard and all of his stories are vividly depicted. You can see him prowling through his neighbour's house, suddenly unable to recall where he was and why he was there.

Suddenly he zooms out from the little world where he lives in Australia that he has created in our minds, making us take a step back and look at the world from a distance, both metaphorically and literally. Along the way he pauses to muse on how committed we have to be to take on certain belief systems more than others – racism versus animal rights for instance.

A truly lovely show that leaves you questioning the world and feeling unreal, displaced and just a touch light headed – all in a good way, of course.