Mark Silcox @ Voodoo Rooms
Mark Silcox, the long-reigning king of gold-plated anti-comedy, strikes again on his Fringe return
When Mark Silcox's laptop crashes almost immediately at the outset of The Gold Trader, he scurries on stage, restarting his pre-show playlist, revealing he listens to Joe Rogan and Dua Lipa as well as a collection of Indian singers from the 50s. Before a word's been spoken, you don’t quite know if the jokes have started.
When the comic finally dons his golden hat and waistcoat, the show begins proper, until the PA cuts out two minutes in. Silcox politely asks if anyone can call for a repairman, which is met with a roar of laughter, until he asks again and again, until eventually an audience member does.
Now the crowd is frantic, with tears already rolling down their cheeks. Clearly some of the audience are friends with Silcox, shouting out and shattering his usually monotonous stage persona, but the reactions from his crowd are baffling.
Silcox mumbles his way through his presentation, almost annoyed at the tediously unvarying nature of it. “I am a successful Gold Trader, as I’ve told you 10 times already” he sighs, as the crowd roar with laughter. Dr Silcox’s reputation for being dry, meandering, inefficient and uncharismatic feels like the antithesis of standup – yet in a room of people craving exactly that, the entire set is met with side-splitting laughter.
This can’t be due to the material, as beside the occasional spelling mistake in the PowerPoint, or a title card spinning around, there aren't any jokes (or at least nothing you would typically call a joke). A large chunk of the show sees Silcox genuinely regurgitating facts about the chemical element gold (Au), without a gag in sight. But if you deliberately bomb to an audience craving exactly that, is it really bombing?
Moving onto a stock footage compilation of dogs falling asleep, one of his many deviations from gold, the biggest laughs come from Silcox’s silences, the tension he creates and the way he skims over slides, trails back for a specific page, loses direction or repeats a video accidentally.
The inadequacies of the show are either the hallmarks of a bad comedian, or the masterwork of one of our greatest comedy minds. For us, it’s most certainly the latter.
Mark Silcox: The Gold Trader, PBH's Free Fringe @ Voodoo Rooms (Speakeasy), until 24 Aug, 2pm, free entry/pay what you want on exit