* * * * (4 stars)
Thanks to the show title and the opening line of the description on the Edinburgh Fringe site ("If you like Hitler, you’ll love Jerry Sadowitz!") you go in with your eyes open, and what you see is a versatile performer who is on top of their game. A comedian who wins over the vast audience of close to 800 people in the Assembly Hall within ninety seconds; a magician so confident and assured that routines that could easily be the climax of another act are discarded with anger towards the wings of a stage; a psychopath who is so clinically accurate that the logic of Sadowitz underpinning the comedy makes perfect sense.
And he rapidly gets to his almost trademarked Madeline McCann moment within four minutes.
There is an artistry here, a delicate light touch which is easily lost behind the forceful personality and verbal assault of the comic. The tools of Sadowtiz trade might be distasteful to the Morningside ladies who would normally sit in the Assembly Halls, but his words are poetic, their construction is impeccable, and should it matter that where other comedians draw breath and pause, Sadowtiz appears to be using swearing for punctuation?
A manic performer, bouncing around material that I suspect could last for hours, going wherever his mood and the audience takes him, there’s no way to say exactly what sort of show you’ll get or where the balance between magic and comedy will be. But you’ll get to see a master craftsman, in his element, at full speed for an hour.
* * * * (4 stars)
Jerry Sadowitz – Comedian, Magician, Psycopath
Assembly Hall
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