Review: Huge Davies: Whodunnit

Sometimes you don't know something has been missing in your life until it's right in front of you. And sometimes that thing is musical comedy but make it misanthropic. Huge Davies is possibly the most miserable man you'll see at this year's Fringe, and you'll have a bloody brilliant time.

Carrying his keyboard like a goth interval ice cream man from hell, Davies glares the audience down with the deadpan dryness that's become his trademark. Whodunnit is a loosely set up murder mystery that allows Davies to sing a lot about death, punctuated with meanderings into strange places indeed. No spoilers, but if he invites you on a stag maybe don't go.

Leaning into such a dry persona would be risky in the hands of someone less funny. Davies' purposeful alienation works because his dripping sarcasm rarely misses. It's like being transported to a world where Robert Smith decided to do gags between songs and started telling the audience to go fuck themselves. 

Rarely in comedy has anyone been as committed to a bit as Davies. His ridiculously long set-ups are meticulously crafted, delivered with his signature sardonic sneer. A healthy dose of observational absurdism keeps everything just on the right side of total nihilism. A trip to Nandos becomes an underworld side quest, whilst his campaign to expose the truth about cinema might just scramble your brain. This is the misery business that the Fringe has been missing.