The Adventures of Pink Peter

Review by Jo Bedford | 12 Aug 2008

Oh dear. When a former children’s television presenter resorts to dressing up as a woman—worse still four women—for the sake of a cheap laugh, you know that something horrible is afoot.

The sight of a man in drag is nothing new, less still shocking and certainly not funny in itself; there needs to be more than a hairdo and a dress to engage a comedy audience. So when Stuart Miles enters as style queen Stella Ratner, relying almost entirely on his garish outfit for laughs, there’s not even a faint titter from the audience. And it just gets worse.

In his lackluster set, Miles transforms himself into three other characters: charity worker Annette Curtan, cosmetic surgeon Dr. Noreen McAvity and finally Vera Singleton, sister of legendary Blue Peter presenter, Valerie.

As each enters to say their ten minute piece, it becomes clear that Miles lacks any direction. He proceeds to target members of the audience, commenting on their fashion choices and sexual orientation in a bid to produce laughter through humiliation.

The jokes, thrown in for good measure, are appalling: “I’ve tried the hummus diet and ended up shitting chick peas!” The one vaguely amusing moment comes when Miles peels a potato in the manner of a striptease. That this is one of the highlights of the show surely speaks volumes.

To be fair to Miles, this is his Fringe debut and it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to don a bra and heels, but that’s no excuse for the fact that his material is so offensively dire. He’d be better off back in the Blue Peter studio, teaching us how to make rockets out of old fairy liquid bottles.

http://www.stuartmiles.co.uk