Manchester Comedy Festival- Hans Teeuwen

Dancehouse Theatre

Saturday 17^th October

3 stars

I have to admit that from the start I had high expectations for Hans Teeuwen.  Mistake me not, I had never heard of the Dutch, eccentric, comedian before, however, once told I was not only immediately impressed but also intrigued. Clearly an intelligent and creative individual, Teeuwen is not only known in the Netherlands for his sense of wit, but also for his work as a singer, writer, actor and director. Surely someone able to encompass all of these things must be a living genius?  Furthermore, I was eager to witness the ambitious attempt of transnational comedy: is it really possible for a Mancunion audience to share and understand the humour of a man who has only recently converted to English performances?

Performing in The Dancehous’, Hans Teeuwen was confronted with a large, enthusiastic audience who all, aside from myself, appeared to be cult followers.  It did not take long for me to realise how he had acquired such fans. Teeuwen provided a startling opening, bursting into a montage of Michael Jackson hits as soon as he marched onto the stage. He did so whilst concurrently contorting his face into strange, animalistic expressions, sending the audience into hysterics.

The rest of the performance was equally absurd. There appeared to be no structure to his work, arbitrarily drawing on random themes, (his tale of the time he was excited to parade around his home alone, dressed only in his girlfriend’s knickers, came typically out of the blue.)

Each line Teeuwen delivers is so exaggerated with bizarre gestures that the slapstick element to his performance is clear.  He also possesses a child-like, imaginative quality and takes great pleasure in describing to his infatuated audience the surreal world that he  once lived in, ‘The Forest of Fantasy’.  Towards the end of the performance he even performed a puppet show, for which my friend and I were dragged reluctantly onto the stage to play the role of the (very embarrassed) assistants.

The most impressive part of Hans Teeuwen’s short but sweet performance was when he hopped onto the piano and provided satirical impressions of various crooners. His raw talent as both a pianist and a singer provided a striking juxtaposition to his clownish, carefree persona. It provided the perfect ending to a somewhat roller-coast ride of a performance and left the audience in high spirits singing along.