Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,374
Do you mean gurning rather than gurneying? He does love a long drawn out, repetitive bit somewhere in the show that most people find interminable. I think it's something to do with his love of free jazz. The bit in Tornado where he acts Ricky Gervais 'Saying the Unsayable' had gurning for absolutely ages. When I saw it live I was in bits, as every time he failed he would try again, but not before some lovely bits of really well observed mime that made it obvious it was Gervais, capturing his onstage mannerisms perfectly. The TV recording seemed to have less focus on the impression and more just on the faces and wasn't as funny.
Did you see Snowflake/Tornado or his latest show BasicLee? The latter has only just started and will develop. He always plays a huge number of nights at The Leicester Square Theatre and the show changes. I saw him in Brighton a few years back when he was doing 'in progress' shows to be developed as part of Comedy Vehicle. Some was a long way from what it became by the time it was recorded.
When I saw him after lockdown at the De La Warr, there was a malfunction with the prop that ends Tornado. It fell early when the curtain was pulled and it hit the stage behind him, missing him by a couple of feet. He rode the incident so well that we were confused for a short while as to whether it was deliberate. Had he been a couple of paces back from the front of the stage, it could have killed him. Had he seen what happened from our angle, he may have been a lot more shaken than he seemed.
