Review: The Tape Face Show

You're unlikely to find a more charismatic yet nonchalant host than Tape Face here at the Fringe. He traipses around, dragging his feet like a petulent teen to all-too-easily invite some audience participation. This is what makes Tape Face great, the audience's willingness to go along with absolutely everything he does. If he used words, they'd hang on every one.

There's a recurring theme of answering a phone that delivers haunting poetry and a brilliantly stage managed hurricane, but people who go to see Tape Face aren't here for narrative structure. They're here for ridiculous set pieces taped together from household items, and perhaps the chance to jump on stage and make the show even more memorable for themselves. For the other part of the show is really the eagerness of the crowd to get involved – and on this particular night there is no shortage of characters ready to get stuck in.

Acting like a magician who doesn't really know any tricks, Tape Face's constant search for the opposite of what you think is going to happen is fun, for a time, but can get a little tedious as set ups repeat over and over until his intentional failure is applauded. The final set piece in which he encourages the audience to turn on their torches to create a starlit sky that only he can truly appreciate from his position on stage suggests that a lot of the time he's here to entertain himself. And he's doing a heck of a job.