Garry Star: Classic Penguins

This was the silliest, rudest and funniest show I have ever seen. Dangerously my wife and I sat in the front row for the spectacle, and it was like being in the front carriage of a rollercoaster with nowhere else to look.

The cheeky and well buffed star of the show Damien Warren-Smith was sitting on a chair smoking a pipe facing away from the audience when you walked in.

He swivelled around to reveal his full-frontal nudity, save for flippers and an Elizabethan collar.

For the abundance of clarity his willy is on display for the entire show – a seventy-minute romp through Penguin classic pieces of literature.

There is one wickedly funny skit after another,  as he re-enacts scenes from famous novels over the centuries.

From The Little Prince to Moby Dick (boom-tish) he tosses around Penguin books and themes with gay abandon.

I say sitting in the front row is dangerous because there is lots of audience participation. At one point he crowd surfs through the audience. The mad Penguin first dived on top of me (face up) and I struggled to lift the sweaty star above my head.

With the help of colleagues he went on his merry way. On our night he complained that a punter accidentally tickled his bottom.

The issue of audience consent was carefully and sensitively managed.  You were able to decline – as I did on one occasion – and it was notable that he selected men for some of the routines which may have triggered discomfort in a female participant.

Warren-Smith is a wonderful and playful clown. He must have been a terror as a school-child.

In show business sometimes a simple idea brilliantly executed can magically become a global phenomenon.

Classic Penguins has won numerous best of fringe awards and received a rapturous reception at the recent Edinburgh Fringe.

Long may he flash.

David Spicer