Fringe review: Casey Filips – What a Character
From nightclub bouncer to AI dating-bot, Filips shapeshifts through a parade of off-kilter characters. ★★★★
Casey Filips doesn’t just play characters, he shapeshifts through them and makes you forget it’s the same person on stage. In this new show, he cycles through a surly night-club bouncer, a Mr Bean-meets-James Bond spy, a frazzled sound guy, an AI tech CEO and his own creation, the dating-bot. It’s a highly interactive show, with crowd-work at its core. Armed with a torch cam and a full audience list, Filips’ bouncer kicks off the night scanning the crowd and kicking out potential troublemakers (for a while at least) in a slightly unhinged, highly committed bit.
Every one of Filips’ characters is slightly off-kilter. Agent 73 wobbles between suave and slapstick, while the AI dating-bot nails the generic, overly polite and sometimes out-of-context AI responses we’re now accustomed to. The sound guy is there to mostly harvest sound bites for later gags: this moment doesn’t quite match the strength of the rest but is only a brief stumble in an otherwise hilarious evening.
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This show is anything but a passive watch: at some point, you will almost certainly be roasted so if you hate being the butt of a joke then this might not be your safest night out. But if you’re up for a lot of laughs and a comic who thrives on unhinged unpredictability, it’s a hands-down winner.
Casey Filips: What a Character is playing at Neat Freak at The Howling Owl from March 3 – 8
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